GORDON KENNEDY
left to right:
• 1963 Gibson B-25
•“ Sebastian” leaning on Kennedy’ s 1962 piggyback amp that used to belong to Chip Young and was available for duty at his studio Young’ un Sound for many years.
• Martin 5-18“ Terz”
• Jerry Reed’ s Baldwin show you how to do this, and this, and this,” and just showed me the works and helped me along. He was always somebody who was huge in my life. After he passed, his wife wanted to hang on to some of his guitars, but after maybe four or five years, she called me up and said,“ Well, I think I can sell this guitar.” So, I bought it.
Well, now we’ re getting back to the golf clubs analogy … It seems you can never have enough guitars— electric or acoustic! I suspect we could continue ad nauseum but tell us about just a couple more.
Oh, absolutely. I also have a Martin 5-18, which is also called a Terz. If you look at Bobbie Gentry’ s Ode to Billie Joe album cover, she’ s playing one of those. Marty Robbins used to play one on stage, and Sting had a signature model based on it. It’ s very tiny, and the tuning is a minor third up. So, if you put a capo on the third fret of a regular acoustic guitar, that’ s where these things start. I have mine Nashville tuned, or high-strung. It has that shiny quality. If you’ re not going to put a mandolin on a track, but you want something to occupy that part of the tonal spectrum, this is it. It’ s a very sweet-sounding guitar.
I understand you also have some treasures from Jerry Reed …
COLLECTIBLE GUITAR | 33