The story almost ended before it began. The house burning down seemed like a sign, and Nelson and Trigger moved from Nashville to Texas to play honky-tonk clubs.
He had done well as a songwriter for others, but his solo career had yet to take off. Texas offered another climate for musicians, and Nelson was a success. In Texas he could push the boundaries and experiment with his music. At the time no one else had amplified acoustic guitars, and he used this technique to craft his own unique sound.
Band members consider Trigger a part of the band, but with one important difference: if something happens to one of them the show will go on. There are instruments older than Trigger, but few guitars have logged as many playing hours in a lifetime, and Nelson plays hard. By now the frets are worn down, the top is covered in cuts and autographs, and despite several repairs there is a large hole through the front of the guitar.
Trigger sees a guitar technician at least twice a year, and despite everything the instrument has been through it has no major cracks, the back is whole, and the headstock has never been broken. All this wear has shaped the timbre into something unique — Trigger is an instrument that sounds like no other. Trigger has a Sitka spruce top, Brazilian Rosewood back and sides, and a mahogany neck. The fretboard and bridge are made of ebony.
This combination of tonewoods gives the guitar a warm and mellow sound. Thirty guitars were made with the rare Brazilian Rosewood of the original, and the rest were made in East Indian Rosewood. Willie Nelson recently hit the headlines again, not as a musicians, but as an author. His autobiography will be released on May 5 th , shortly after his 82 nd birthday.
I seen Willie in concert in Rome Georgia and when I seen tiger I was amazed I was looking at a piece of history none other like it thank you Willie for all your great hits you are one of the last of a special breed. Does anyone know who Willie got the guitar from?
Look at old pictures of Nelson with Trigger. Jimmy lied to you. Willie bought Trigger sight-unseen from Shot Jackson after his old Baldwin guitar was damaged, and put the pickup from his old guitar in it.
Wille Nelson's technique is his own, and he's very proud of his guitar playing, as he should be. He's instantly recognizable as a singer and a guitarist, and that sort of thing is very very rare. Willie Nelson uses downstrokes almost exclusively in his soloing. This technique is his own, and will never be taught to anyone by an instructor because it prevents the player from ever being able to play very fast.
Playing fast is over rated though, and Willie Nelson never needed to do it to sound great. Now you may think of Willie Nelson as a country and western singer and guitarist, but the truth is different.
Willie Nelson is secretly a jazz guitarist, he got interested in jazz from the music of Django Reinhardt. Willie is also a guy who infuses a lot of Latin musical styling into his music. The way to be memorable in music is to sound like yourself and no one else. Another strange thing Willie Nelson does involves his guitar, 'trigger. The thing about it is the particular guitar is a classical guitar, and classical guitars are built for nylon strings.
Classical guitars like 'trigger' are meant to be played fingerstyle, but Willie is playing 'trigger' with a plectrum or pick. Now, to be sure, loads of people also do this, but they are not doing it on a classical guitar so much, and when they do it, they typically do that for a song or so - while Willie plays a classical guitar with a pick using almost all downstrokes in every single song of his you will ever hear.
The guitar 'trigger' is also an amplified classical guitar. You may find another classical guitar with a pickup installed inside it somewhere in the world, but such things are far removed from normalcy with classical guitars.
Willie Nelson and his 'death row' guitar One of the few photos of Willie Nelson you will ever see with him playing a guitar other than trigger. Source The image above is one of the only images of Willie Nelson with a guitar in hand that isn't the famous 'trigger. The story of how Willie acquired his nylon string Martin is one well documented elsewhere on the web, but suffice it to say it involved the unfortunate death of the guitar he had been playing, and so he was in a hurry to get a replacement, and wound up with the nylon string Martin he has more or less been married to ever since.
Insofar as how and why Willie Nelson fell in love with trigger, it would be pretty shallow for me to describe that here when you can hear it from Willie himself.
The following video is just that, Willie Nelson telling the tale of how he and his nylon string guitar, 'trigger,' became inseparable. Willie Nelson was born in Abbott, Texas in Being born and living through the great depression surely made an impact on Willie.
The great depression made a lasting and life long impact on everyone I've ever known who'd been through that. He's a poet, a writer, a singer, song writer, actor, and activist. Sometimes Willie will say that what he is truly proud of is his guitar playing. A founding member of the Texas 'outlaw country' music movement - Willie's appeal has never died out, and won't either.
He's forever evolved his music, involved loads of younger musical stars in it, and he's always kept writing songs, touring, recording, and speaking out about the things he believes in. He has sold over forty million albums, and on almost all of them he was playing trigger, his Martin N nylon string classical gutiar.
The one Willie Nelson made famous is a model. The 68' and 69' model Martin Ns are of a shorter scale than classical guitarists appreciated, so in Martin started making the same instrument with a longer scale. These guitars were never hot sellers. In Martin only produced of these guitars. Were it not for Willie Nelson, these guitars would be very obscure guitars indeed.
In these instruments were still produced with Brazilian rosewood for the back and sides, and that is a treasured tonewood now, as it is no longer easy to come by, and is pretty prohibitive for most insofar as costs go. Any newer model Martin N you find will be of East Indian rosewood, and you'll lose very little, if anything at all, with that also fine tonewood. Of course should you be planning to play such a guitar with a pick, you should consider putting a pick guard on it.
Pattern N-style classic — 18A; Top and back binding — black Boltaron; top inlay -. End pin: No end pin or hole. Heel cap: black ebony with. Bridge: pinless with a tie block. If you are dead set on owning a Martin N, then best of luck to you finding one. Thanks for reading. Post a Comment. The Flatpicking Guitarist. Share to Twitter Share to Facebook.
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