Dwight Yoakam strums — and tells guitar tales — at the 2017 NAMM Show in Anaheim
The annual NAMM Show, an extravaganza of musical products that opened its four-day 2017 edition on Thursday, serves up two primary draws for the thousands of industry insiders who flock to Anaheim from around the world: the newest and shiniest instruments and gear, and star power.
Cruising through close to 1 million square feet of exhibit space sprawled across the entirety of the Anaheim Convention Center, as well as the adjacent Marriott and Hilton hotels, attendees know they may round a corner and spot any one of dozens of music world luminaries who drop in to plug the products they use.
Case in point: roots-country singer Dwight Yoakam. The roots star set visitors to the Martin & Co. guitar exhibit space atwitter Thursday when he introduced a new signature model Martin acoustic guitar bearing his name. Retail cost? A cool $5,999.
The “Guitars, Cadillacs and Hillbilly Music” singer/songwriter was joined by Martin CEO Chris Martin IV and Jeff Allen, who heads up the company’s custom shop that crafted the new model DD-28 instrument. It’s patterned after the first Martin that Yoakam ever owned, a 1972 acoustic instrument.
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“I could never afford one” as an aspiring young musician, Yoakam said in an interview following the brief presentation on a small makeshift stage.
He fought to be heard above the telltale NAMM din borne of simultaneous auditioning of electric guitars, amplifiers, drum kits, tubas, trombones, banjos, violins, flutes, mandolins, vibraphones, pianos, synthesizers and all manner of DJ equipment being hawked by thousands of manufacturers and vendors.
One of the Martin product representatives plugged Yoakam’s instrument into a handy amplifier to boost its sound, but after strumming a couple of times, the multiple award-winning musician unplugged, telling the crowd in front of him, “This is the best way to hear a Martin.”
Then he sheepishly confessed that “this isn’t the best place to demonstrate the nuances of its sound, but when you play one at home, you’ll get it.”
Having a Martin that bears his name on the market “is a huge honor,” he said, “up there with getting a gold or platinum album, although it probably doesn’t pay as much as a platinum album,” he added with a chuckle.
But far from a simple celebrity endorsement for which he licensed his name, this signature instrument was exceptionally personal.
For most guitarists, acquiring their first high-quality instrument — be it a Martin acoustic, a Gibson Les Paul or Fender Stratocaster electric —constitutes a life milestone.
Yoakam was still a year shy of releasing his 1986 debut album, “Guitars, Cadillacs and Hillbilly Music,” frequenting the clubs of Los Angeles while banging out his brand of roots rock, rockabilly and vintage country inspired by the likes of California country greats Buck Owen and Merle Haggard, when he made his first major guitar purchase.
“I finally cobbled enough money together to buy a 1972 Martin, which I found through an ad in the Recycler,” he said.
“I went to this woman’s house somewhere in Culver City, and she pulled the guitar out from under a bed that was in her son’s room,” he recalled. “He’d bought it in college, quit playing, moved away and never came back for it or asked her to send it to him.”
Martin’s Custom Shop, which specializes in high-end instruments for guitar aficionados, approached Yoakam last year about lending his name to a signature model. The company used his 1972 instrument as the prototype, researching the original specifications, types of wood used and other design elements to re-create it as accurately as possible.
“They did a great job,” Yoakam said.
Such celebrity sightings help NAMM exhibitors get an edge over the considerable competition around them. It’s at this event each winter, and the companion summer NAMM conventions, where most music instrument and equipment vendors make their deals for the months and year ahead as part of the $17 billion generated by sales of such products last year.
As Yoakam spoke about the key role Martin acoustic guitars have long played in country, bluegrass and folk music, he also pointed out that Elvis Presley was strumming a Martin in Sun Studio in Memphis when he first recorded “Mystery Train” in 1954.
Chris Martin IV, great-great-great grandson of the original Christian Frederick Martin who founded the Nazareth, Penn.-based company in 1833, smiled, looked across at Allen and quipped, “We should hire this guy.”
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