Guitar maker / brands to consider with a lonsome 1970's folk sound

[Dryfly]

Originally Posted by fretfile100

A used Larrivee might fit the bill. Be sure to audition it before committing.
Note that Peter Yarrow has used one for decades.

Yes
And you could cover the logo with a rubber band too!

[Bob from Brooklyn]

Originally Posted by bufflehead

a D-18 standard or a J-45.

Maybe, if you want to be a little 'different', a Guild D40.

Here is Ian AB'ing one vs. a D18.

[macmanmatty]

I'm seriously looking at the standard Martin D-28 if I can find one with a 1 3/4" nut that's probably what I'll do and if I can find one with a cutaway and K&K installed that IS what I'll do. Also I'm surprised at how cheap martin customs are. Any small luthiers in my price range that have this tone?

[phavriluk]

I'm wondering if OP is chasing a goal that never existed. Any recorded sound OP hopes to emulate has been massaged by production management to suit the recording company. Heaven only knows what that piece played by that performer in person sounded like. Record companies don't spend their efforts to accurately reproduce what the performer provided.

[macmanmatty]

Originally Posted by phavriluk

I'm wondering if OP is chasing a goal that never existed. Any recorded sound OP hopes to emulate has been massaged by production management to suit the recording company. Heaven only knows what that piece played by that performer in person sounded like. Record companies don't spend their efforts to accurately reproduce what the performer provided.

I'm not looking to emulate any recorded sound at all . Any clips I listen to are live and preferably solo guitar work with no more than guitar and vocals hopefully using a single mic for both guitar and vocals. Anyways I'm heavily leaning towards a d-28 now I just need to find one with a 1 3/4" nut.

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by macmanmatty

I'm not looking to emulate any recorded sound at all . Any clips I listen to are live and preferably solo guitar work with no more than guitar and vocals hopefully using a single mic for both guitar and vocals. Anyways I'm heavily leaning towards a d-28 now I just need to find one with a 1 3/4" nut.

Here is a 2018 HD-28 at Maury's Music, an AGF sponsor, and it has a 1 3/4" nut width.

I think the HD-28 or the D-35 are good examples of great folk music guitars. They are great flat picking guitars and great guitars for finger picking as long as a dreadnought fits you well. Many of us have more shoulder problems as we age. I still play my dreadnoughts in spite of shoulder pain.

I have a 1967 Martin D-35 that I have used since I got it new when I turned 21. I used that guitar professionally for many years, and I was essentially a folksinger.

Another great guitar for a folksinger is a Gibson Advanced Jumbo. I have one of those, too.

- Glenn

[Scotso]

My memories of 70s acoustics were of Guilds, Martins and Gibson dreads....usually mahogany because they were cheaper.

[Sax Player Guy]

Originally Posted by warfrat73

Well, since "Sunday Morning Coming Down" is the standard here, shouldn't we be looking to Kris Kristofferson for some inspiration. Gibson SJ, and I think a D-28.

Yipes, I am a dope! When I replied I was thinking about "lonesome Sunday morning coming down" as descriptors of a sound and a feeling, and completely forgot about Kris Kristofferson's song. Please ignore me until I get my head back on right.

At the moment, I can't find a way to hold my head that doesn't hurt.

[martingitdave]

Originally Posted by macmanmatty

I'm not looking to emulate any recorded sound at all . Any clips I listen to are live and preferably solo guitar work with no more than guitar and vocals hopefully using a single mic for both guitar and vocals. Anyways I'm heavily leaning towards a d-28 now I just need to find one with a 1 3/4" nut.

All of the new "reimagined" Martins come with 1-3/4" nut. Also, as I mentioned in my post, and Glenn (a well seasoned expert on the folk scene) are suggesting, take a look at the HD-28 or D-35 as well. The HD includes scalloped bracing, which you will find enhance the bass and treble of the guitar. The D-35 is not scalloped, but uses lighter bracing overall, and will produce more bass than a standard D-28 out of the box. There are a few models with cutaways in the the last few years. I think they made them in 2018 for instance.

[FPicker]

Originally Posted by macmanmatty

... I'm looking for a lonesome Sunday morning coming down sound. Think 1970's folk like Tom Paxton , Peter Paul and Mary, Bill Staines, etc....

FWIW what they mostly used, back in the day (among others, mostly later) :

Tom Paxton- Martin D-28 (rosewood dreadnaught).
Peter, Paul & Mary-
Peter: Martin 12-fret dreadnaught (1962 D-28S, rosewood)
Paul - Martin nylon string (1961 00-18G)
Bill Staines- Martin D-18 ('63?) mahogany dreadnaught (Played upside down; he is a lefty)

[SkipII]

Originally Posted by macmanmatty

I want a Sunday Morning coming down SOUND. Because there's nothing short of dying half as lonesome as that sound. I don't Necessarily mean like the guitar part of the song, though on most recordings that guitar part was sad. Not Johnny Cash's however, But his was still a great recording.

The sound I'm talking about is resonant full sad rich suspended. The kind of sound they play in the movies after some guys girlfriend moves halfway cross the country to California. Then he wakes up the next morning hungover half baked and reads the goodbye note his drunken crying girlfriend wrote the night before after the fight but before the silence. Next he walks down the the sleepy city sidewalk on a chilly fall Sunday Morning passing a few sleeping lowlifes next to cheap magazines covered with filth, rows of run down brownstones with broken windows graffiti and replaced with garbage bags , damaged street parked cars with even more busted out windows replaced with trash bags or dirty shirts, rows of street sweet-gum trees losing their leaves and sweet gum balls and overfilled trashcans as he reconsiders his life choices. The sound/ tone a Guitar would play as he's walking those sidewalks that is kind of sound I want.

You forgot the weary sigh of his own breathing as he realizes for the first time the effort breathing now takes when a life you once had was your bellows. And how when you talk down those sidewalks littered with pebbles of decay you don't feel the stones and the frayed leather so much as the soles of your feet as they feel so bare, so wounded, so sore with all of it. The faint rippling whistle of the morning breeze that has no melody now other than a mournful, low howl. And so you breathe again, and it starts all over.

That kind of sound?

[dnf777]

Guild F-30. Vintage offerings should be well under your budget.