Chords for Julian Lage & Chris Eldridge Talk Vintage Martin and Collings Guitars | Reverb Interview

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So, on the record, I've got [F] a _
[Bb] 1937 Martin D-18 that I've had [B] for, I don't know, maybe
about three [A] or four years now.
Jules had [Bb] a, he'll tell you about this, but [B] he has a [A] triple 018 [Bb] from 1939.
_ _ [D] And for me, playing the [Bbm] D-18, switching over to the mahogany guitar, [Bm] there's like [Eb] a beautiful
interlocking thing where [Bbm] one guitar kind of melts into the other.
They just have similar types of voices.
[D] I don't know, needless to say, I don't really feel like traveling [A] with that thing, if I
can help it.
[Db] So, this is a 1954 [Bbm] _ [B] D-28 that I got when I was in [Bm] college.
This guitar has a name.
This is [G] Uncle Johnny.
_ [Dbm] _ _ And Uncle Johnny's just an awesome, [E] just a really cool guitar.
I used it [C] in kind of all the early Punch [E] Brothers _ stuff.
[D] And then, [E] when I got my [Db] older Martins, the 30s ones, they have a wider [B] neck and they're
just, they're braced differently.
They just respond _ differently.
And I was [Bb] really [Ab] intoxicated with that for [F] a while.
But [D] man, I like pulled this off the shelf about a year ago and just remembered [A] like,
this is [Bm] a sick [F] guitar.
But it's all beat [A] up, which is great [Eb] because I feel like I can travel with it.
[B] I feel like, well, [A] you know, if [Bb] it were killed, that would _ completely break my [Am] heart.
But if it picks up [Ab] another crack along the way, [Bb] whatever.
You know?
Yeah.
_ [Bbm] Like Critter said on the record, [Eb] the acoustic guitar I've been playing for a long time is
_ a 1939 Martin 00018.
It's from late 39, [C] so it's a little bit thinner neck, more like an early 40s Martin.
And that guitar, before I owned it, probably 15 [Gm] years before I owned [Db] it, was completely
_ in [Ab] pieces.
It was in a garbage bag and the neck was ripped off and [Bb] there's holes in the wood, [B] _ big patches
of duct tape keeping it [G] together.
The previous [D] owner brought [Db] it back to life with the help of TJ [B] Thompson and Ken Fallon
[Eb] and that's when I got it.
[Em] This guitar that I'm playing [Eb] today is, [G] it's actually a Callings.
It's a new Callings.
About two years ago, I called my [D] friend Mark Althans at Callings _ and Steve McCreary and
the whole crew and I said, okay, can you make me a [B] guitar that is _ _ _
[Bb] basically like your Waterloo line?
Because I'd gotten one of the early Waterloos and [C] I just thought they were [Abm] amazing.
They felt so brutally honest.
If I didn't play well, they sounded fine.
If I played really well, it sounded great.
And I thought, okay, this is my new [D] guitar teacher.
_ This one and another [Eb] one I have at home are the only two I know of [Dm] that they made that
have a [Db] Waterloo finish, no polyurethane.
_ It's a feather-like guitar.
It's _ _ [Am] really plain.
[D] And I love it.
And it's exactly what I called for two years ago.
The neck profile [Bm] is like my 39.
If I play okay, it sounds fine.
If I play well, it sounds really great.
And I love that about [C] it. _ _ _ _
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[F] You know, there's a [C] reason that those [B] guitars are so revered.
[D] There's a sound that they have [Bb] that the [B] newer ones don't have that, I don't know why, there
are a lot of theories [Ab] for why, like the [Bb] sap or whatever, it kind of [A] like crystallizes over time.
And who knows?
Who knows why they sound the way they do?
But I have, I've [B] always loved old instruments.
[Eb] And I've had the luxury that I grew up around kind of old instruments because my father's an [Bm] musician. _
The idea of having a great new guitar [B] is of course like, [Eb] that's [D] the most appealing to me now.
You know, if I [G] could have a dreadnought that kind of behaves [C] like this thing, that [D] would
be the dream because then you can really travel with, and as much as I've [A] said that
if something happened to this guitar, if [Eb] I have one guitar for the [Bbm] rest of my life, it's
going [C] to be this one.
You know, I love this thing.
So to have something that's new, that kind of intonates and _ [B] behaves in [Bb] all the kind of
practical [G] ways like _ [A] a new [Bb] guitar, but just _ [A] responds like an older one, that's [G] obviously the dream.
There are [C] things that [B] an old broken guitar has that [Am] a new guitar doesn't yet.
[B] I think the potential or the reason to buy a new guitar is that you would, you [C] feel like
if we stick [B] together in time, we'll have a relationship and this will break into [G] my sensibilities.
I think [C] something about a light build guitar with barely any finish on it makes you feel
like every hour you play it is worth, [G] you know, a [Am] month of playing a new guitar with
a different [Bb] kind of finish.
So in short order, this feels, I love this.
[A] I mean it makes me want to get up and practice every day.
So that's I think the job of a guitar.
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