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Model D-28. Serial number 291114. Ex coll.: Johnny Cash. First Dakota National Bank Fund, Yankton, South Dakota, 2004. |
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This 1971 Martin D-28 guitar, known as The Bon Aqua, was kept at Johnny Cash’s 100-acre farm near Bon Aqua, Tennessee, 35 miles southwest of Nashville. Returning from extensive tours in the U.S. and abroad, Johnny would go there alone, as he wrote in his autobiography, “to cook my own food, read my own books, tend my own garden, water my own land, and think, write, compose, rest, and reflect in peace.” As such, the guitar, which Johnny used while writing songs during the last 30 years of his life, was more intimately connected with him than the hundreds of other guitars that came and went through his hands on the road. |
Inscriptions: Branded on back graft: [lettering curved downward at each end] C.F.MARTIN & Co [sic] / — ∙ — / NAZARETH, PA. / MADE IN U.S.A.
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Body: Soundboard: two-piece spruce, wide grain narrowing toward the flanks. Back: two-piece book-matched East Indian rosewood. Ribs: two-piece East Indian rosewood. Head: mahogany veneered with rosewood. Neck: mahogany; hole from strap button, now missing.
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Inlay: Binding: white celluloid; top trim comprised of black-white-black-white-black celluloid purfling strips; back trim comprised of two purfling strips of black and white celluloid. Rosette: wide band of white and black striped celluloid (9 strips), surrounded on each side with narrower bands of the same material (5 strips each), with natural wood in between. Back stripe: back stripe comprised of alternating sections of light-dark-light and dark-light-dark purfling strips, every fourth strip a light-dark-light strip three times longer than the others, surrounded on each side with one strip of light hardwood purfling. End graft: white celluloid strip (slightly wider toward top than bottom) surrounded by thin white and black celluloid purfling (2 strips) on each side.
Trim: Heel cap: white celluloid. Fingerboard: ebony; 20 nickel-silver frets; single mother-of-pearl dots behind 5th, 9th, 15th, and 17th frets; two abalone dots behind 7th and 12th frets; white celluloid side dots behind 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th, 15th, and 17th frets. Nut: ivory. Bridge: ebony with curved lower edge; angled, white celluloid saddle; white celluloid bridge pins with black celluloid eyes. Pegs: six chrome-plated steel worm-gear machine tuners by Grover with convex head surfaces and enclosed worm gear mechanisms. Endpin: white celluloid with black celluloid eye. Pick guard: later black plastic. Varnish: clear with fine craquelure.
Interior: Linings: kerfed mahogany. Neck block: mahogany; chamfered corners. End block: mahogany; chamfered corners; mahogany graft at center, perpendicular to top and back. Top bracing: spruce X-brace, the joint of main cross brace reinforced with white canvas; rosewood bridge plate. Back braces: four spruce back braces, the two braces in the lower bouts with rounded edges, and wider and lower in height than the two braces in the upper bouts. Back graft: spruce.
Literature: Associated Press syndicated story, appearing in print and websites worldwide.
Ben Walker, "Johnny and June Carter Cash Estate Auction," Day to Day, National Public Radio (September 14, 2004).
Museum Press Release, "National Music Museum Acquires Johnny and June Carter Cash Guitars" (October 30, 2004).
Robert Morast, "Famous Guitars; Music Museum Buys Guitar Used By Johnny Cash," Sioux Falls Argus Leader (October 30, 2004).
Susan Hanson, "Celebrating Johnny Cash," SDPB Feature, South Dakota Public Radio (December 3, 2004).
Used by John McNeill to play "Wildwood Flower" for "A Celebration of Johnny Cash" presented by the United Way of Vermillion and Gayville Hall in Gayville, South Dakota on Saturday, November 20, 2004 at 7PM.
"Johnny & June Carter Cash Guitars Acquired," National Music Museum Newsletter, Vol. 32, No. 1 (February 2005), p. 7.
André P. Larson, "NMM Exhibition features Our Martin Guitars to Celebrate the 175th Anniversary of the C. F. Martin Company," National Music Museum Newsletter, 35, No. 2 (May 2008), pp. 4-5 and 7.
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