GORDON KENNEDY
“ IF YOU WERE TO PICK UP A GUITAR AND PLUG INTO A DIFFERENT RIG, YOU’ D BE TWEAKING UNTIL IT SOUNDED LIKE YOU! SO, I ASK GUYS, HOW MUCH MONEY ARE YOU WILLING TO SPEND TO SOUND EXACTLY LIKE YOU DO RIGHT NOW BEFORE YOU SPEND ALL THAT MONEY?”
So, your collection has grown. I have to say, Del Langejans was a great maker. He built a small 12-fret steel string for me in the‘ 90s with an offset body that he developed into a nylon string version for Earl Klugh. But of all the remarkable guitars in your life, the one I can’ t wait to hear about is your dad’ s Martin 00-18.
Good gosh, I still can’ t believe that happened. It really is a miracle. To understand what this guitar means, you have to go back to 1950 in Shreveport, Louisiana. My father was only nine years old when his dad, a deputy sheriff, asked him if he wanted guitar lessons. My dad said yes, and three days later, his father passed away.
In the wake of that tragedy, his teacher, Tillman Franks, recognized my dad’ s talent and told my grandmother he needed a real instrument. Now, you have to remember, my grandmother was a widow raising three kids on $ 32 a week. But she went out and spent $ 90— nearly three weeks’ wages— to buy him a brand-new Martin 00-18. Such was her belief in him.
The guitar was his world until Tillman borrowed it for a show, and it literally fell off the roof of a car.
It was badly damaged, and Tillman, feeling guilty, replaced it with a Gibson. We all assumed that Martin was just gone, lost to history. But it turns out that Tillman held onto it and repaired it.
Fast forward 70 years. My dad gets a call from Tillman’ s daughter, Darlene, asking if he wanted his old Martin back. We’ re thinking, you’ ve got to be kidding! So, I drove down to Shreveport expecting to find a box of splinters. After all, this guitar had fallen off a car roof, been through a factory repair in’ 69, had its neck broken by a child, been loaned to a Hank Williams impersonator, sat in a pawn shop, and spent years baking in a hot attic. But when I opened the case, it was miraculously in one piece. We sent it to the Martin factory in Nazareth, and Dick Boak and the team there generously restored it for free because they felt the history was just too important to lose. I honestly thought that the better it looked, the less likely it was to sound good, but was I ever wrong. It sounds unbelievably great.
I worked with Lloyd Baggs on it; he was developing a new pickup called the HiFi Duet, and this was one of the first guitars he put it in. It’ s just mind-blowingly good.
30 | SUMMER 2026