The Martin 000-28 EC

(the Eric Clapton signature guitar)

There's an interesting story behind how this guitar came to be.

Eric Clapton's career was in the doldrums and he was no longer inhabiting the "Clapton is God" position that he once had. The rise of MTV meant that video was increasingly becoming important in music and Clapton was one of the fist artists to put his name down for the unplugged series. Obviously this went on to become a classic performance and one of the best selling albums of all time.

Alongside Clapton's career being at a low ebb so was acoustic guitar manufacture. Acoustics had very much fallen out of fashion and martin didn't even make any instruments of the OM (orchestra model) size any more. The day after the concert aired though Martin's phone lines were jammed with people asking where they could buy one of the guitars like Clapton had played last night. So, Dick Boak (head of production and artist relations) went to the board suggesting they capitalise on this opportunity by making a Clapton signature guitar (based on the 1939 000-42) that Clapton had played.

So, money being tight, they decided to take a big gamble and build some of these instruments (461 in total - after 461 Ocean Boulevard)...there was a degree of scepticism as to whether they could sell that many but they would try.

They sold out immediately so they decided to make some more. To date they have now sold nearly 35,000 of them and it has become not just the most successful artist signature model but one of their most successful instruments.

This was a guitar that I owned a few years ago and it was the first really good Martin guitar I had owned. Prior to this my experience had been "mixed" but this was a genuinely good instrument.

Spruce top (with aging toner applied) and east Indian rosewood back and sides this is a fine looking instrument. Rather than having the usual satin finished neck and headstock it is all high gloss and looks delightful.

It provides a lovely smooth well-articulated sound and still represents very good value for money for people looking for a high quality instrument that isn't too cripplingly expensive.

Here's little snippet of me playing a bit of Clapton on it!