Massachusetts singer-songwriter Kris Delmhorst talks about a guitar she saw in a shop in Colorado at the turn of the millennium … and she couldn’t stop thinking about it. It’s been her go-to instrument for the past 25 years now.

Here’s what Delmhorst had to say:

I'm Kris Delmhorst, and this is my 1968 Gibson J-50. I got this guitar probably in 1999 or 2000. I was on the road — I was in Boulder, [Colorado] — and I stopped in the guitar shop, and it was sort of love at first sight. And I played it, and I couldn't afford it, and I left it there. And then I finished the tour, and I went home, and I just couldn't stop thinking about it. And so finally, I decided that I would just call them and see how much it was to ship it, and that would probably be too much, and then that would decide it for me. But instead, it was like 30 bucks, and then I knew I was in trouble. And then I bought it! And it's been my road guitar ever since, so 25 years or so.

I love how it pairs with my voice. It's a really dark, dead, woody-sounding guitar, and that's not perfect for everything, but you can't have everything in one guitar, and that's just a thing that really suits my voice, and anchors my voice really well.

This guitar's favorite things are: It loves to be strummed. It loves a microphone. And it really loves D tunings of any kind; it loves the low E string to be down to D. For fingerpicking, because it is so dead, it's really not that ideal. If I have a tour where I can bring two guitars, sometimes I'll bring another one for fingerpicking stuff.

I just love that it has incredible, really amazing checking all over the place. It has had such a life, and I love — this is true of any old instrument — but just not knowing where it's been and what kind of music it has played. But it's cool to play a guitar with some history to it, and feel like I'm adding layers of history, and it'll have probably a life when it's not mine anymore. I love thinking about that with these [guitars].

Credits

Guest – Kris Delmhorst
Producer – Mike Pengra
Video – Evan Clark
Audio – Eric Xu Romani
Graphics – Natalia Toledo
Digital Producer – Luke Taylor

External Links

Kris Delmhorst – official site

Gibson Guitars – official site