“I’d saved up $2,000 just from busking and playing gigs and asking my grandparents for money at Christmas”: Molly Tuttle reminisces on her first Martin – and how it ended up in Arizona’s Musical Instrument Museum

(Image credit: Joshua Applegate/Getty Images)

Nowadays, bluegrass and Americana phenom Molly Tuttle may wield a custom Martin acoustic, but her love affair with the legacy acoustic guitar brand is far from a new fling. In fact, it goes back to her early days.

“Well, I actually met a woman in Nashville who works with Martin, and she reached out and said, ‘Do you ever play Martin guitars?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I started out when I was 12,’” she says in the latest issue of Guitarist.

“I’d saved up $2,000 just from busking and playing gigs and asking my grandparents for money at Christmas and stuff. I went into the music store where my dad used to teach, and they had this Martin HD-28V that [had] an Adirondack spruce top.”

Molly Tuttle shows us her new ‘Crooked Tree’ Martin dreadnought – with killer bluegrass licks – YouTube

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Tuttle describes how she always aspired to own a Martin. “I always really wanted a Martin,” she asserts. “I started out on a Baby Taylor, and then I graduated up to Blueridge guitars. But I coveted Martins because that’s what all my favourite guitar players had. So that was my first nice guitar that I ever bought as a kid.”

In college, Tuttle graduated to a “vintage Martin”, a ’48 D-18. “That was another Martin I loved,” she reminisces, “but I sold both of them. I sold my first ever Martin to my aunt and now it’s in the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.”

The vintage Martin saw its fair share of action, however. Tuttle explains that she was touring with it for a while, but felt like “I was damaging it because of all the travel and the wear and tear. You go to different climates, and those old guitars don’t have an easy way to adjust the action because they don’t have truss rods.”

Eventually, she “kind of needed the money,” so she sold it, and ever since she’s been playing different guitars. So, it all came full circle by being set up with a custom, tour-proof Martin that you can spot her wielding at her shows.

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Just last month, Tuttle revealed her surprising guitar pick of choice, which has helped shape her distinct bluegrass-based sound.

Janelle is a staff writer at GuitarWorld.com. After a long stint in classical music, Janelle discovered the joys of playing guitar in dingy venues at the age of 13 and has never looked back. Janelle has written extensively about the intersection of music and technology, and how this is shaping the future of the music industry. She also had the pleasure of interviewing Dream Wife, K.Flay, Yīn Yīn, and Black Honey, among others. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her creating layers of delicious audio lasagna with her art-rock/psych-punk band ĠENN.