| Martin Introduces The HD-35 Nancy Wilson "Heart" Signature Edition Guitar
After more than 30 years as guitarist, songwriter and singer for Heart, Nancy Wilson knows fine acoustic guitars. Much of the credit for the beauty and tone of the Martin HD-35 Nancy Wilson Signature Edition guitar goes to Wilson herself, who collaborated closely with Martin on the design. A rare combination of premium solid tonewoods gives the HD-35 Nancy Wilson Signature Edition distinctive tonal character. The top of beautiful Engelmann spruce - a tree that grows in the Northwest, where Heart got its start - combines with forward-shifted scalloped braces for full, powerful tone. The sides and the three-piece back wings are East Indian rosewood, while the center wedge is "heart" bubinga, a beautiful and unusually hard African tonewood that provides outstanding projection. A Pisces fish Yin Yang design is inlaid in rare pink heart abalone, mother of pearl and red composite beneath the Old Style "C.F.
Wear Your Music
The charity bracelet trend has finally hit the indie rock world, and no, we don't mean those black plastic wristbands you bought to support Hot Topic. Relix magazine and Azu Studio have come together to create Wear Your Music bracelets, fashioned from the very guitar stings played by musicians such as Ben Harper, Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard and Ziggy Marley. Retailing for anywhere between $99 for strings used by Gibbard up to $150 for legendary Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh's strings, the bracelets are handmade, designed by Azu Studio and bound by a durable silver seal. All profits from the bracelets are donated to worthy arts and community charities like Headcount, the Rex Foundation, Seva and Rock 'N' Wrap It Up! New artists are constantly being added to the already impressive list of participants, which already includes Ziggy Marley, Michael Franti, String Cheese Incident, the Goo Goo Dolls, Guster and Ben Harper.
Paul McCartney's first guitar on sale
For 100,000 The guitar that Paul McCartney learnt how to play his first chords on is being auctioned and is expected to fetch 100,000. The seller of the Rex acoustic guitar is McCartney's friend Ian James from his schooldays at Liverpool Institute High School for Boys. In a signed letter accompanying the item, the former Beatle writes: "The above guitar belonging to my old school pal Ian James was the first guitar I ever held. It was also the guitar on which I learnt my first chords." Ian James taught the 15-year-old McCartney the chords that would later impress John Lennon enough to let him join his band The Quarrymen. "Paul and I hung around together after school," James said. "We both had an interest in rock 'n' roll and I would show him a few chords. I remember one day he told me he'd written a song and I thought 'Blimey, that's hard'." Ian James and McCartney lost touch for 28 years, but were then reunited in 1991 at a Wings concert.
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