Jed Marum has seen my 1972 Larivee Mucha Lady presentation model at a Rick Fielding memorial concert in Silver Spring, MD the year after he died. I also have two Martins (a K-2 and a slothead D-15) a Tacoma DM-10, a Taylor NS74-C classical nylon and numerous other guitars i.e Takamines, Washburns, Alverezes.

He knows I have never seen the like, heard the like, or road-tested the like as the Larivee. I picked it up from a widow whose husband had simply put it away for 20 years, and I gave her the asking price and whistled away the ghosts as I walked back to the car. The problem was that it has so much engraving that no one wanted to play it, as Wendy Jones (later Larivee) had enlaid abalone everywhere. It has celtic knots all over the bridge, Vase and Vine up the fingerboard, and abalone purfling on every surface. But its like a whorehouse in a tank; it is the strongest, best balanced, loudest guitar I have ever known and I use the heaviest strings known to man (i.e. 59 49 38 27 18 14 custom Elixers). I hit an A chord in Hangman's Reel and the other guitars cough up blood. I hit an Em in Morrisons and there is a wet spot on their bridges.

Jean Larivee set out to build his own style body, which is unique to his guitars ( a sort of cross between the round lower bout of a Jumbo with the squared upper bout of a Dreadnought) and their strength shows. There is no Martin in the world that could take the string pressure and the percussive effects I use on jigs and slip jigs and in the past 21 years I have not left a sratch on it. It does have two small dents, one in the neck heel where some bimbo twit couldn't set up her music stand, and another as my good friend Sam Rizzeta moved a hammered dulcimer and slightly dented the lower bout. Sam says he'll repair both whenever I ask, but I will wait until the last minute in case I get another.

In any case, all that the above said is true to their own lights, though the one Martin I did think came close was a Martin HJ-28, of which few were made and many should finger if comes around. Then you too can whistle past the graveyard...