Well, this is quite a question (and the thread has been going six years or so, it appears).

I have several good acoustic guitars, each with its own character (and some of them with specific purposes). Here we go:

My main playing guitar, currently, is a Running Dog Jumbo, spruce top and sycamore sides and back. Loverly, balanced sound with enough volume but a very easy response (you don't have to hit it hard to hear it). Made by Rick Davis of Richmond, VT, whose one-man shop turns out some nice guitars, indeed.

Currently, I'm renewing my love affair with my previous favorite, a 1964 Martin D-28 with a non-Martin top. The top got stove in back in the 1970s, and "a luthier in NY City" made a new top for it. It's X-braced BUT fan-braced behind the X. It's the most responsive dreadnought I've ever played. It has that deep rosewood base, but has plenty of clarity in its notes (many rosewood guitars are mushy in tone, as the overtones and sustain that rosewood gives you get in the way of the notes).

When I want to play something else, I dig out my 1943 Martin 0-18, with its mahogany dry tone and small-guitar ease of handling. Mahogany guitars tend to a tone that "cuts" through the mix, and can be heard even when other guitars have fallen under the spell of the "wall of sound."

Then, again, I sometimes pull out my 1944 Epiphone Zenith archtop guitar and play me some jazz-like tunes. I say "jazz-like" since I don't really have the chops for jazz, but like to put a hint of it into what I can play. Maple back and sides, spruce top, good punch and volume, little sustain, as with most good archtops. Every once in a while I drool over a new Eastman archtop, but the slight edge it has over my Epi isn't worth the $2K it costs.

Then, sometimes, I play once of the classical guitars I have around the place. I'm working with a Civil War band these days, so need a good, loud non-steel-strung guitar, and a classical is all I have. I have a small-bodied German guitar that's the right size and shape, but have a yen for a particular guitar I played at a Civil War reenactment, for sale by a "suttler." I was too broke to buy it (only $300) but may find something like it in the future. It was a 1900s German guitar -- very narrow waisted "parlor" guitar in shape, but exquisitely loud for a classical, and just what I'd need for the band. The one I have now is sweet-toned, but not at all loud, which is unfortunate. I have a loud classical, a flamenco guitar, but it's not really mine (long-term loan) and I hesitate to take it on gigs.

Anyway, those are my "favorites," with at least some idea of why they are so. I have others -- a metal resonator guitar, a dobro, even a banjo-guitar -- and three or five electrics, which are another category altogether.

Does that answer your question? Next week, banjos.


Bob Clayton