The guitar he chose to play on that show was a 1930s OM 28 style. It’s a more versatile instrument that allows the player to go farther musically.Īre there any famous guitarists associated with this model?Įric Clapton, when he appeared on MTV’s “Unplugged” show in the early ‘90s, created a minor revival of interest in the acoustic guitar. Some folk and fingerstyle players will play 12-fret guitars, but 90-plus percent of guitar production is a 14-fret neck. It has become what we think of as the steel string acoustic guitar. What else did they do differently in terms of design? The shape was based on Martin’s biggest body size at the time, the 000, but the longer scale length enabled a louder sound. The idea was to make this guitar feel familiar to banjo players, so the first OM models used banjo tuning machines. With the OM guitar, they were able to find success with the Bob Wills-style Western players, who wanted the bigger-body guitar and access to the frets. The OM took off in its second year - Martin had a good marketing strategy, and economic times were tough. The 1930s were very important for the development of American steel string guitars.
Martin for decades had been in transition from nylon traditional strings to steel strings, and this was the last step in creating the dedicated steel string guitar.
This moved the bridge to a different place on the 12-fret design, so they had to change the body as well. Frank Henry Martin came up with this design, which had 14 frets. The banjo players, led by a fellow named Perry Bechtel, asked Martin to make a guitar with greater access to the neck and a slimmer neck. A 1930s OM-28 restored by Guitar Craft Academy instructor Marty Lanham.