gibson j-45

Price unveiled her new band and her new signature model at a recent performance at the Gibson Garage in Nashville.

Photo courtesy of Gibson

The Grammy-nominated alt-country and Americana singer, songwriter, and bandleader tells the story behind the creation of her new guitar and talks about the role acoustic Gibson workhorses have played in her musical history—and why she loves red-tailed hawks.

The Gibson J-45 is a classic 6-string workhorse and a favorite accomplice of singer-songwriters from Bob Dylan to Jorma Kaukonen to James Taylor to Gillian Welch to Lucinda Williams to Bruce Springsteen to Noel Gallagher. Last week, alt-country and Americana artist Margo Price permanently emblazoned her name on that roster with the unveiling of her signature-model J-45. With an alluring heritage cherry sunburst finish and a red-tail-hawk-motif double pickguard, the instrument might look more like a show pony, but under the hard-touring and hard-playing of Price’s hands, it is 100-percent working animal.

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Rig Rundown: The Band Camino

Efficient, economical, and exacting are the key features that allow these pop-rockers’ finely-tuned setups to pump out buoyant ballads and bangers.


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A bone nut being back-filed for proper string placement and correct action height.

It doesn’t have to cost a lot to change your acoustic guitar’s tone and playability.

In my early days, all the guitars I played (which all happened to be pre-1950s) used bone nuts and saddles. I took this for granted, and so did my musician friends. With the exception of the ebony nuts on some turn-of-the-century parlors and the occasional use of ivory, the use of bone was a simple fact of our guitar playing lives, and alternative materials were simply uncommon to us.

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