Sentimental Strings - The stories behind our beloved guitars

It’s time to talk guitars, or at least let’s talk about the guitars that have been used within our song recordings, live performances and videos. So when we talk of instrumentation within our songs, the majority of them include guitars for the simple reason that guitar is my main instrument and Melanie, principally a pianist, also has guitars, ukuleles and recently also a mandolin that she will talk about too as she has played these on many of the cover song videos we have recorded over the years.

As the saying goes: ‘You can never have too many guitars’. It would be very easy to get carried away with that. Joe Bonamassa allegedly has 400+, Kieth Richards professes to have 3,000+ (where does he keep them all?), Steve Vai 400+. It seems even Taylor Swift allegedly has 100+.

So my exceedingly small collection of around 10 is pretty insignificant, which sounds like good reasoning for convincing myself (and those around me) that I need more…!

I am a firm believer that what is important is to actually use all the instruments you have, and every one of my guitars has been used on a song. I am also very sentimental about my guitars (hence the series title) and I have only ever resold one guitar, which was in fact the first electric I owned when I was in my late teens. So some of my guitars have been with me a long while (showing my age now) and in fact although the intention is to look at each guitar separately and in no specific order, it would seem inappropriate not to start this blog series with the oldest guitar I have and the story around that.

A special birthday present: the Saxon Western 825
So the oldest guitar I have is a Saxon Western 825, not a vintage guitar, but still a very well made and attractive acoustic guitar. As can be imagined, the older guitars have stories that are personally sentimental and this one in particular, along with my Yamaha guitars, dates back to my early days when I began to take guitar more seriously. 

For my twenty-first birthday, my father took me to a music shop to meet with a musician colleague of his, Willie Garnett, who knew the shop owner very well. I remember going upstairs to an area that was absolutely full of acoustic guitars and I tried a few out before picking the Saxon, which my parents gifted me for my twenty-first. I immediately liked the appearance of the guitar which was hand-crafted from selected spruce, nato, jacaranda and maple, with a fretboard and bridge of rosewood and pearl inlays. I don’t think it was a particularly expensive guitar, but Willie recommended it as being one of the best value-for-what-you-get guitars they had in the shop. The back of this guitar is particularly attractive as it was made in three sections with two different woods.

Another unusual aspect of  this guitar is that it has an adjustable bridge, which I myself have not come across before, or since. For many years this was my go-to guitar for practice and working out the next song. I gigged with it for a while in an acoustic duo, but mostly used electric in the bands I was in at the time. So this has a lot of sentimental value to me as it has been with me most of my life, is now 40+ years old and still sounds great.

Initially I kind of retired this guitar as I was a bit concerned that it was getting on a bit and had seen a fair amount of use in the early days (sounds like I am talking about myself!) so I felt it could do with being preserved. Also, it was around the time where I was effectively living in two countries, so at that time I bought another guitar, the Tanglewood, to have with me while I was away and kept the Saxon in its case. Then I thought that it was a shame not to use this guitar, particularly as it has developed such a good tone, so these days I have it strung as a 6 string with ‘Nashville’ tuning strings which are tuned slightly differently, so if you hear any of our songs that sound as though there may be 12 string guitar, it will most likely be 2 guitars, one standard 6 string and then the Saxon layered over it to give that additional twang. Our song ‘Pick Yourself Up’ in particular features this guitar, layered with my Tanglewood to give this twelve string effect.

In my next blog of this 'Sentimental strings' series, I’ll be talking about my first gigging guitar, the Yamaha SG30, so stay tuned for more tales and behind-the-scenes of our instruments. Share your thoughts, memories and perhaps your own musical stories in the comments below. If you haven’t already, subscribe to our newsletter to be one of the first to know about our latest releases and blog updates.