Limited-edition Martin guitars, the 000-18 1955 CFM IV 70th and D-18 1955 CFM IV 70th, pay tribute to Chris Martin IV's 70th birthday and the folk boom of 1955. Featuring reclaimed spruce tops from Alaska, vintage appointments, and a limited run of 70 instruments each, these guitars blend history with modern craftsmanship.
To celebrate Chris Martin IV’s 70th birthday, C. F. Martin & Co. is proud to introduce two limited-edition guitars that honor a pivotal year in both Martin’s history and American music: the 000-18 1955 CFM IV 70th and the D-18 1955 CFM IV 70th.
1955 wasn’t just the year Chris was born—it marked the dawn of the folk boom, a cultural movement that would forever shape the sound of American music. As acoustic guitars took center stage, Martin Dreadnoughts and 000s became essential tools for a new wave of artists. These new limited-editionmodels pay tribute to that defining moment, blending vintage inspiration with modern craftsmanship.
Each guitar is based on an original 1955 Martin recently acquired at auction. The 000-18, serial number 145102, came from the Heritage Auctions Guitar Shop Collection and was prized for its honest wear and soulful tone. The D-18, serial number 144636, was part of the renowned Skip Maggiora Collection—150 vintage instruments auctioned to benefit music education and youth charities. Both original guitars showed decades of play and served as direct inspiration for these commemorative instruments.
One of the most striking features of both models is their reclaimed spruce tops—a first for Martin. The wood comes from old-growth trees salvaged around Prince of Wales Island in Alaska, including wind-felled trees, dismantled log bridges, and massive logs once used in historic barge ramps and floating logging platforms. Sustainably sourced and steeped in history, the spruce tops are printed to replicate the look of the original 1955 instruments, adding visual character to their tonal warmth and balance.
The 000-18 1955 CFM IV 70th features a gloss 000 body with mahogany back and sides, non-scalloped Sitka spruce X-bracing, and a focused, articulate sound ideal for fingerstyle players and singer-songwriters. ($4,699)
The D-18 1955 CFM IV 70th offers the bold voice of a gloss Dreadnought, with rear-shifted non-scalloped X-bracing for enhanced projection and tonal clarity. ($4,699)
Both models include vintage-style appointments: faux tortoise binding, an Old Style 18 rosette, FSC®-certified rosewood fingerboards with 1955-style mother-of-pearl inlays, satin select hardwood necks with Golden Era Modified Low Oval profiles, and Kluson® Waffleback® nickel tuners.
Each guitar is limited to just 70 instruments and includes a hardshell case and an embossed paper label hand-signed by Chris. Released together, they celebrate Chris’ legacy and the timeless Martin tradition of quality, innovation, and respect for the past.
The 000-18 1955 CFM IV 70th and D-18 1955 CFM IV 70th are available now online and through select Martin dealers.
Dave Matthews’ guitar playing left its mark on the hosts of 100 Guitarists. In this episode, we’re talking about his unique style and sound and the players who influenced it. From his work leading DMB to his duo performances with guitarist Tim Reynolds, there’s a lot to cover.
Speaking of Reynolds, Jason calls on Dave and Tim to return to Luther College for the 30th anniversary of their first live record. And Jason learns about Michael McDonald’s guest spots with DMB.
Recording sessions for Janek Gwizdala’s debut album in November 2004 at Manhattan Center Studios, NYC. Back row left to right: John Ellis, Mark Turner, Elliot Mason, Albert Leusink, Tim Miller. Front row: Jojo Mayer and Janek.
Photo by Jonas Bostrom
What does your favorite player’s back catalog reveal about their artistry?
I recently reconnected with one of my earliest teachers and mentors in London, Geoff Gascoyne. Google him—he’s had an incredible career, and he set me up with some invaluable information at the beginning of mine. I was a guest on his podcast, The Quartet, and so many amazing memories about my very first days of becoming a bass player came flooding back.
One of the most important lessons I learned, just weeks after picking up my first bass, was also something that wouldn’t come into focus for some years—and it’s something I think we all deal with as fans of music.
We all have our favorite artists and favorite albums or periods of output from our heroes. It’s one of the major considerations that factors into whether we’ll go that extra step and buy a new recording or a concert ticket. Geoff knew I wanted to be a jazz musician and recommended some incredible albums like Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section, Speak No Evil by Wayne Shorter, and Soul Station by Hank Mobley. But in that very same lesson, he threw another name into the mix: Meshell Ndegeocello.
I fell in love with her albums Peace Beyond Passion and Plantation Lullabies, and her playing on those records has shaped my foundation as a bass player more than any other artist I’ve ever listened to. Both came out in the early and mid ’90s, when I was doing nothing but listening to and playing bass every day. They were the soundtrack of a very formative time in my life, and as such, my attachment to the music was intense.
Fast forward a decade to the mid 2000s: I’m living in New York, even playing on the same bill as her. Through my initial disappointment that she didn’t play any of those songs I loved so much as a kid, I started to understand something incredibly important about what it is to be an artist.
She was playing for herself in the studio. She was making music that mattered to her and not following a tried-and-tested formula of copying the albums that made her successful early on. It would have been so easy to make variations of Plantation Lullabies and be known for a specific thing for the rest of her career. But despite the massive success of Peace Beyond Passion, which was her second album, she followed it up with Bitter: acoustic guitars, strings, and big, open-sounding drums. A complete—and very brave—left turn.
“Curiosity is always going to win out in the artist’s mindset, and those who are truly curious tend to write and play for themselves.”
This is not the norm today. People find something that works, and then they do it over and over again. They maybe change the lighting in their TikTok video once in a while or go do “their thing” in front of a famous landmark in the hopes of more followers. But they rarely seem to play for themselves. They do it specifically because they deal in the metric of attention, and are beholden to their audience.
My big takeaway is that I think it’s important to realize this both as a fan and as a player. It’s easy to expect something from your heroes because you have such a connection to a small part of their catalog—and that’s what you want to hear when you go to see them live. But history tells us that a large percentage of serious artists have moved on, sometimes even before an album is released.
Curiosity is always going to win out in the artist’s mindset, and those who are truly curious tend to write and play for themselves. Whoever comes along for the ride is a bonus.
We’re all basically along for the ride, and I think we can lose sight of that when we get too attached. Don’t get me wrong—I’m always going to love Peace Beyond Passion—but I’m also going to remember that it’s the artist beneath the performance that I’m actually most attached to. I now try to have as open a mind as possible when I go see my heroes live or listen to their new music, and that has a massive impact on how I go about my own career as an artist.
With my current goal of releasing three new albums every year until my time here ends, I have to let go of the last thing and move to the next more efficiently than ever.
I think you’d be surprised by some artists you think you really know—then you go digging in their back catalog and discover there are things they put out that never reached your ears.
Now, more than ever in history, it’s our job as fans and players to stay engaged in the fundamentals—and ignore the noise.
PG contributor Tom Butwin tries the Lutefish Stream, a desktop device that lets musicians rehearse, record, and collaborate online with ultra-low latency. Tom tours the hardware, explores the browser-based mixer, and enlists a musical collaborator to test a real-time rehearsal for an upcoming performance.
Benson Amps is proud to present their new flagship tube effect unit, the Tall Bird Plus Reverb and Tremolo. This marks a leap forward in spring reverb and optical tremolo design, solving many of the noise and technical issues of classic units, while also pushing the boundaries of what these circuits are capable of. The Tall Bird Plus is musical, quiet and extremely flexible.
According to company founder/ designer Christopher Benson, ”In a tale as old as time, in 2023 we were approached by The Beach Boys to create a limited edition reverb-tremolo unit called the Surf’s Up, based on the classic Fender circuits with some upgrades, which was exciting because it allowed us to slay some dragons in the form of abiding tech problems with that type of circuit.
After the dust settled, we realized the dragons could be deader, threw out the Fender schematics and performed a ground up redesign of how WE would achieve the classic sounds with even more versatility and lower noise…and also have regular AND harmonic tremolo in one unit. After “some” experimentation (like a LOT) we settled on a design called the Tall Bird Plus that checks all the boxes."
Key features:
Separate Wet and Dry controls
EL84 driven transformer coupled reverb.
“Size” control – Shapes reverb character from splashy and shimmery to boomy and cavernous. - “Dwell” controls how much signal is sent to the reverb tank, ranging from short, spanky sounds through longer decay all the way up to saturation of the tank circuit.
“Classic” and “Harmonic” tremolo modes, possibly the only tube-driven optical harmonic tremolo on the market.
Reverb and Tremolo are can be independently bypassed with the included 2 button foot switch.
