I’m 62 now. I bought my first guitar (a Goya nylon string) as a knee jerk reaction to seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. And I mean seeing them! I was in the audience for that history making show. Remember when you first started playing? The pain, the seemingly impossible barred F chord and the millions of dissonant choices that eventually fell away as we fell in love with the guitar. Today, I can say that I appreciate the guitar just as much as when the romance was new. Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to own some pretty great instruments. Examples by Dana Bourgeois, Richard Hoover (Santa Cruz) and Bill Collings were each stars in their own little universes. Oddly, I found myself dismissing Martin as a true contender. Sure, a pre-war D28 will certainly humiliate any banjo in its path and once you get up into the more deluxe models, a new Martin will still hold its own against most contenders. I guess, ashamedly, I’d become a guitar snob.

Then everything changed. I was cruising around the internet visiting my usual guitar haunts when I stopped at the Wildwood Music site, drawn to a special order Martin 000C 41. I’d never seen this configuration and it was loaded. Abalone all over the place, 42 and 45 appointments, very luxe — but that’s not what was really important. Because of a long and fruitful relationship with the Custom Shop, Marty and Don of Wildwood had access to a place most customers will never know — Martin’s stash of the absolute best woods on the planet. This guitar boasted their finest Spruce — tight grained, one color all the way across the top with zero run out — truly spectacular. The back and sides were crafted of Dalbergia Spruceana — Amazon rosewood, a wood many consider a very close cousin to it’s illegal-to-import brethren, Brazilian rosewood. Well. I was smitten. This had to be a great guitar. After a few lovely conversations with both Marty and Don during which I came to the conclusion that these two were certifiable guitar aficionados, I pulled the trigger. It was expensive. But I had a gut feeling.

When it arrived — a day late — thanks UPS, I found myself savoring that wonderful Christmas/birthday anticipatory moment that comes just as one opens the case to welcome a special guitar into one’s life. It was stunning in an understated way (if you can consider about three yards of rainbow flashing abalone understated). But the wood was another story altogether. Incredible in color and grain. The Amazon looks for all the world like CITES Brazilian and the spruce is honestly the loveliest I’ve EVER seen. Oh yeah, the sound. I own a 00028 Custom Shop Herringbone with scalloped braces. I thought it sounded fabulous. A-B’d next to this new little opera singer, it sounds well, boxy. They say talking about sound is like dancing about architecture but I can state one thing for sure about my new guitar. It’s like listening to a McIntosh tube stereo after an IPod. It’s got real high fidelity. Well, all I can say after dealing with Marty and Don and then becoming the steward of this killer guitar for as long as I get to keep it is — you can’t go wrong with Wildwood and their privileged relationship with Martin’s top-end custom shop team. Save your pennies boys and girls.

Attempting to describe what it’s like to play a fine acoustic guitar, banjo, mandolin, dulcimer, harp, viola, flute, horn, etc., often elicits language evocative of love or romance. Why? To those musicians already captured by an acoustic instrument no explanation is necessary. Indeed, for many musicians, the signpost to their musical path was discovered upon hearing the sound of a particular acoustic instrument—a kind of “love at first sound” event—being played “live” or in a recording. For myself, hearing Who Will Stop the Rain by Creedence Clearwater Revival along with The Boxer and El Condor Pasa by Simon & Garfunkel on my Mom’s kitchen radio as an impressionable 12-year-old in the summer of 1970 has fueled a 35-year obsession with acoustic instruments. (Note: I didn’t actually start learning to play the acoustic guitar until I was 18-years-old,  but the seeds had been planted in 1970.)

One of the primary joys of playing an acoustic instrument is just the sheer simplicity and immediacy of picking it up and being able to make it produce sound without first plugging-in an amplifier, then locating a patch cord to connect the instrument to the amplifier and so on. Other than replacing strings or wiping/polishing with a cloth every now and then, most acoustic instruments do not require an inordinate amount of care and their sound almost inevitably improves with age. An acoustic instrument can bring joy and fulfillment to several generations of musicians.

But, of course, the real joy in playing an acoustic instrument is the sound—particularly the sound produced by an instrument that’s been built with loving care, attention to detail and using the finest available materials. For someone like myself, who began learning to play the guitar on a very inexpensive instrument, few things compare to the magic of hearing say, a Martin D-28 respond to a thumbpick and fingers with a deep, resonant bass—the sound I fell in love with when I first spun Don McLean’s American Pie album on my stereo in 1975.

While Marty and Don at Wildwood Music are in the business of selling high-end and custom acoustic guitars, banjos and dulcimers, what they really offer is a safe haven; a respite from the crazy, frantic world-at-large where marvelous acoustic sounds can be explored, inhaled, dissected, analyzed and appreciated in depth without repeated interjections from a commission-driven salesperson eager to make a quick sale. Wildwood Music is a place where it’s virtually impossible to turn around and not bump into an instrument that doesn’t wink at you and whisper “play me, my song is heavenly.” In simpler and perhaps more accurate terms, Marty and Don are in the business of wish fulfillment—they can make your acoustic instrument dreams come true.

Many, many thanks to Marty and Don for giving me the honor of designing their new website and for letting me help initiate the new Wildwood Blog where Don—and perhaps Marty if she can be coaxed into taking the plunge—will be sharing his/her extensive knowledge and thoughts about all matters concerning acoustic guitars, banjos, dulcimers and whatever else crosses his/her mind.

Ted Haughawout (aka Ted Lamarsson)  is an Akron, Ohio-based artist, musician, graphic designer and all-around nice guy.

We have had many kind offers from several multi-talented customers—all experts in the field of Web Design; their suggestions were generous, and are much-appreciated! Our accepting of Ted and Paula, and TH Design, was a product of Fate: Marty and I were ready to change our Website, and Ted and Paula–who happened to have wonderful expertise in Web Design—came to visit Wildwood at that precise moment!

As we labored through the overhaul process, we were amazed and comforted at the way our “Dynamic Duo” from TH overcame the various obstacles we frequently placed in their path! They made it very easy for us to deal with any problems that arose, and Marty and I did not feel so much like “Dumb and Dumber” in our encounter with HTML, WordPress, and other “foreign languages!” (LOL)

Hopefully, you will enjoy this fabulous new iteration of Wildwood Music on the World Wide Web as much as we do! It is beautifully artistic and very creative. We really like that it is easy to navigate the different pages, too!

We send out our enormous gratitude to Ted and Paula, to the many fine folks who happily offered their talented services, and to all our wonderful customers—you have been so very special, and are such incredible sources of joy for us! Thank you so much for your remarkable encouragement of Marty and I, as you join us in that blissful quest for Stringed Instrument Happiness!