GEAR OF THE YEAR
The instruments that shone bright for us in the acoustic world during the past year
Fender Highway Series Dreadnought & Parlor
After the runaway success of Fender’s Acoustasonics we asked ourselves how the company could follow such a daring new range of designs. The Highway Series answered that question with another variation on the traditional electro-acoustic theme. Built in Fender’s Mexican facility, the Highway acoustics come in two body sizes, dreadnought and parlour, with an electric voice powered by a custom-designed Fishman Fluence pickup at the neck side of the soundhole. A contour control scans between two EQ extremes, offering a range of tonalities, and the thin-depth mahogany bodies make for an extremely comfortable experience. We loved them!
Price: £949 Website: www.fender.com
Martin SC-10E
The Martin guitar company is an old friend of innovation – it invented the steel-string acoustic, after all – and this guitar follows in the footsteps of the somewhat radical SC-13E that was premiered at the 2020 NAMM Show. The principal diversion from traditional acoustic design begins with the Sure Align ‘linear dovetail’ neck joint and continues with the elliptical neck contour, sleek and stylish good looks, FSC-certified body woods, Fishman MX-T pickup and soundhole mounted controls. Our review celebrated the SC-10E’s “unheard-of playability and sweet tones both acoustically and amplified”, as well as its “super value”. A worthy entry here.
Price: £1,375 Website: www.martinguitar.com
JWJ Guitars Orchestr a
Luthier Rich Jones is based in Shropshire, hand-building guitars inspired by the golden era of Martin and Gibson designs. This OM model was passed around the Guitarist office and everyone who played it said the same thing: it was not only very well built but the sound was incredibly musical with that rare hard ‐to-put-down playability generally found in top-ofthe-line acoustics. A Sitka spruce top, Indian rosewood back and sides with a Honduran mahogany neck and rosewood fingerboard combined with a light, resonant build add up to a wild card entry in the acoustic field for this relative newcomer to our pages – “everything you’d expect from this most popular body size,” we said. And just look at the price!
Price: £1,875 Website: www.jwjguitars.co.uk
I LEARNED FROM THAT
“The saying, ‘Your mind is like a parachute, it won’t work if it’s closed’ is often attributed to the late Frank Zappa, but it’s been proven so many times over the years in my approach to guitar playing. We’re creatures of habit and once a lesson is learned we tend to stick to it without question, whether it’
