Originally Posted by
Jim Soloway
A couple of thoughts about the number of guitars with which MT has been associated ...
Yes there have been a lot of them: the Yamaha; the Vanden; the Peerless; and now the Fibanocci. That being said, there are a lot of common elements of all these guitars and not a lot of choice about moving on from one to the next. From the Yamaha on, he has tried to get some added acoustic zing in all of these guitars, first with the added piezo in the Yamaha and then with solid woods in the others. From the Vanden on he was also trying to get some extra space for his left hand with a wider nut. My understanding of these guitars is that there's a pretty straight line from the Vanden, through the Peerless to the Fibanocci.
He's not George Benson so he never got the kind of long term relationship with a major manufactured that GB has been blessed with all these years. Yamaha discontinued his guitar. The Vanden (which may have been the best sounding archtop I've ever heard in concert) was just way too valuable and too hard to replace to take on the road. The Peerless/Fibonacci relationship in not something I have a really clear picture of but as I understand it, Fibonacci has grown out of the higher end of the Peerless archtop division and Taylor moving from one to another seemed like a natural consequence. Maybe I have that wrong. If so feel free to correct me.
As for the marketing aspect of it ... if he can pull it off then I say good for him. The music has never been kind and now it's brutal. Martin Taylor is, in my mind, one of the greatest guitarists of all time but he's never going to fill the Hollywood bowl or even a large casino show room. If this arrangement can't help him stay afloat in the mist of absurdly stormy waters, then I'm all for it and any benefit he can gain. We are all better off when player/artist of Taylor's caliber can succeed.
5 Guitars - Neck Pickup - Jazzblues: Danocaster,...
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