Bon Iver chief songwriter Justin Vernon may be the only guitarist to ever turn down a vintage Martin guitar for a $199 “god ugly” beater.
While making Sable, Fable, the two-time Grammy winner’s first album since 2019’s I,I. Vernon was after an elusive guitar sound for the track "Speyside," which saw him make a choice that would shock most guitarists. Vernon shared the story while speaking with co-producer/co-writer Jim-E Stack in a video for BBC Radio 6 Music.
"Speyside" finds Vernon in a typically vulnerable light. The sparse recording features little more than his voice and some delicate acoustic guitar playing.
As he explains, his original demo for the song was recorded with an iPhone. Its intimate sound made him want to have fans experience the song as if they were “inside the guitar.”
“There was something about the iPhone demo,” he says. “The iPhone just has that great compression on it. I wanted the left part of the guitar [the bass] to be in the left ear when you put the headphones on, and the right ear has the upper [treble] part of the guitar.”
Early into the recording sessions, Vernon took a trip to the Minnesota store Willy’s Guitars to find the perfect acoustic guitar for the occasion. “I got a very nice '60s Martin because I was like, ‘This song's important. We've gotta get the guitar for it.’"
Vernon and his guitar tech, Wyatt Overman, decided to wire up the Martin with two pickups — one for the treble side and another for the bass.
They decided to test their idea on a lesser instrument in Overman's workshop: a “hideous” Ibanez V70CE that had been rejected by a Minneapolis rehab center because of its poor condition.
“I was like, ‘What's the story with this guitar, because it is god ugly,’” Vernon recalls.
“Wyatt does this work where he sets up guitars for folks at this recovery center in Minneapolis called Hazelton’s,” he explains. “And this was such a crappy guitar that they wouldn't take it. They wouldn't even take it for inpatient recovery.
"So we got it.
Part of the Japanese firm's V series, the V70CE was first released in 2014 and featured a select spruce top, mahogany back, sides, and neck. It was a simple instrument with a humble price tag.
After Overman’s split pickup concept worked on the Ibanez, he turned his attention to the Martin.
“He takes this rather expensive Martin from the ’60s, drilling holes in it and putting all this hardware in it to do the pickups,” Vernon says.
But upon testing their results, Vernon and Overman were surprised.
“We're playing it, but it's just not quite making me excited," the guitarist says. "It's not doing 'the thing.'”
The Martin's exact year of production isn't stated, but the 1960s is considered an excellent year for the company's craftsmanship. Despite that, and against all odds, the Ibanez delivered the sound Vernon was chasing.
“So I'm like, ‘Wyatt, did you bring the beater guitar?’" Vernon recalls of the recording session. "We plug it in, and it's very quiet and kind of noisy, but it just has ‘the sound.’
“We had to bring it with us because it's the only guitar that sounded like this, for some reason,” he adds.
Stack believes “this guitar really is the song. I can't ever imagine [Vernon] playing this song without it.”
No doubt Vernon and Stack are among the few to have ever turned down a Martin in favor of a lesser, modern acoustic. Martin fans are widespread, and include Joe Bonamassa, who called reissuing his prized “museum-grade” 1941 Martin “the honor of a lifetime”.
More recent releases have seen the firm pay tribute to its Hawaiian roots and promote optimism through music with a special-edition 23-inch scale LX1. It has also reissued Eric Clapton's iconic MUTV Unplugged acoustic, celebrating a guitar that helped win over a whole new generation of players.
