2004 Martin D-18 Clay Hess Model: Clay Hess Talks About His Own Guitar
Many guitarists would love to have a guitar with their name associated with it - for Clay Hess, this is a reality. Clay plays one of only 25 Martin D-18 Clay Hess model guitars. They're made with a harder red spruce top, which he believes is the key to the guitar's great sound.
Check out this video to hear how Red Spruce is preferable to Sitka Spruce for Clay.
[CLAY HESS PERFORMING WITH THE NASHVILLE BRIGADE]
CLAY HESS: My name is Clay Hess. I’m playing tonight with the Nashville Brigade. I’m normally the guitar player with Mountain Heart, and I play a 2004 Martin D-18 Clay Hess Model. So, they built 25 of them in 2004 and it just happens to be one of the best guitars I’ve ever played.
PATRICK OGLE: What’s it made out of? [INDISCERNIBLE]
CLAY HESS: It’s a mahogany guitar with the top’s red spruce, forward X brace, scalloped bracing, red spruce braces.
PATRICK OGLE: [INDISCERNIBLE] red spruce. What -- I haven’t -- Red spruce is from where?
CLAY HESS: Adirondack mountains. [OVERLAPPING]
PATRICK OGLE: Adirondack. Okay. Oh it just happened to be that [INDISCERNIBLE] the day about that, Adirondack Spruce being the superior to the Sitka and the other ones.
CLAY HESS: Yeah. Right. Exactly.
PATRICK OGLE: Why would you say that?
CLAY HESS: It’s harder so the response time is quicker, and it probably vibrates at a faster speed which projects more. And with the scallop bracing, you can get away with the scallop bracing. It will take the scallop bracing a lot better and the forward shift of braces because the wood is so much harder that it doesn’t give as much in the big wide open space of the [INDISCERNIBLE].
[CLAY HESS PERFORMING WITH THE NASHVILLE BRIGADE]
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