Than a Spruced up D-28 Close Collaboration with a Bluegrass Star Produced This 1986 Preston Thompson Dreadnought by Teja Gerken

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Than a Spruced up D-28 Close Collaboration with a Bluegrass Star Produced This 1986 Preston Thompson Dreadnought by Teja Gerken

Great Acoustics More Than a Spruced Up D-28 Close collaboration with a bluegrass star produced this 1986 Preston Thompson Dreadnought By Teja Gerken EVERY LUTHIER YEARNS to have a guitar end up in the hands of a virtuoso who will use the creation onstage and in the studio. Some- times these connections happen by chance, but other times they’re the result of a collaboration between builder and player. Such is the case with this Preston Thompson Dread- nought, which was built for—and played by—the late flatpicking star Charles Sawtelle. Thompson (pktguitars.com) first met Sawtelle in Boulder, Colorado, in the late 1970s. Sawtelle was just getting started playing with Hot Rize (he began on bass before switching to guitar; other original members were founding guitarist Mike Scap, mandolinist and fiddler Tim O’Brien, and banjo player Pete Wernick). Thompson and Sawtelle quickly struck up a friendship. Eventually, Thompson moved to Vermont to attend Charles Fox’s School of Guitar Research and Design Center, and after finishing the program, settled in Bend, Oregon. He remained a close friend of Sawtelle, and the influential bluegrass guitarist was a regular houseguest whenever he passed through Oregon. Swatelle’s main instrument at the time was a 1937 Martin D-28, and while he loved the guitar’s sound, he longed for something fancier to play onstage. So, Sawtelle asked Thompson to build a dreadnought with the tone and feel of the D-28, but dressed up with the abalone purfling, fingerboard inlay, and details of a style-42 Martin. “Charles knew a lot about vintage Martins from his days working at the Denver Folklore Center,” Thompson says, “and he was a great mentor to me.” Thompson had gotten ahold of several particularly nice sets of Brazilian rosewood, and he let Sawtelle pick the wood for his guitar. Because Adirondack spruce was difficult to source in the mid-’80s, the pair decided on a German-spruce top. The guitar is constructed, braced, and generally built as close to the specs of Sawtelle’s D-28, the only exception being a carbon-fiber neck reinforcement. Thompson completed the guitar in 1986, and Sawtelle played it at countless gigs and recording sessions until his death in 1999. Today, the dreadnought is owned by Sawtelle’s friend Jean Ballhorn. You can hear it on Hot Rize’s 1990 Grammy-nominated album Take It Home. ag TEJA GERKEN is a contributing editor to Acoustic Guitar and a performing musician. Acoustic Guitar (ISSN 1049-9261) is published monthly by String Letter Publishing, Inc., 501 Canal Blvd., Suite J, Richmond, CA 94804. Periodical postage paid at Richmond, CA 94804 and additional mailing offices. Printed in USA. Canada Post: Publications Mail Agreement #40612608. Canada Returns to be sent to Pitney Bowes International Mail Services, P.O. Box 32229, Hartford, CT 06150-2229. Postmaster: Please make changes online at AcousticGuitar.com or send to Acoustic Guitar, String Letter Publishing, Inc., PO Box 3500, Big Sandy, TX 75755. 118 February 2014.

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