THE INSTRUMENT APPEARED ON COUNTLESS RECORDINGS WITH EARL SCRUGGS AND THE FOGGY MOUNTAIN BOYS THROUGHOUT THE 1950S
By Robert Wilonsky
There are myriad guitars of significance in Heritage’s October 9 Vintage Guitars and Musical Instruments Signature® Auction, including the 1939 Martin D-45 that guitar historian Tom Wheeler listed “among American guitar’s irreplaceable treasures.” Only 91 were made in 1939; now it’s believed only about 90 prewar D-45s exist. The auction also features the 1978 Gretsch Roy Clark prototype made for the Hee Haw host, the Eddie Van Halen-Steve Ripley collaborations and classical guitars (and more) from Washington, D.C.’s legendary The Guitar Shop.
But one guitar among the more than 400 stands just a little bit taller, sounds just a little bit louder, maybe means just a little bit more. That’s because it’s the “First Guitar of Bluegrass Music,” as the Bluegrass Heritage Foundation called it last year – the 1942 Martin D-18 that once belonged to Lester Flatt. Yes, that’s right: Lester Flatt of Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, the architects and prophets of bluegrass music. Lester Flatt of Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys, whose “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” won Grammys and scored movies and whose “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” is still heard every time you visit The Beverly Hillbillies. Lester Flatt, the singer, songwriter and guitarist who was “as important to American culture as its best writers and painters,” according to a U.S. House of Representatives resolution in 2010.
This 1942 Martin D-18 owned by Lester Flatt was used extensively by the bluegrass music pioneer. The storied guitar is now available in Heritage’s October 9 Vintage Guitars & Musical Instruments Signature® Auction.
This Martin D-18 has such a storied career it was a special guest at the Bluegrass Heritage Festival in 2023, where it was played and displayed with “jaw-dropping” results, according to the foundation, which celebrated its use “on most recordings made by Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys throughout the 1950s.” Its arrival at auction is an event among bluegrass fans and Martin enthusiasts who’ve spent weeks guessing how much it could bring.
“This D-18 might be one of the loudest I have ever heard,” says Aaron Piscopo, Heritage’s Director of Vintage Guitars & Musical Instruments. “It remains in excellent playable condition, and the sound makes you tremble – especially when thinking about its previous owner and how hard he must have played this thing! This guitar is not only a high-quality Martin from the early 1940s but also a foundational piece of bluegrass history.”
In the late 1940s, Flatt and banjoist Earl Scruggs formed the Foggy Mountain Boys, which became one of the most influential bluegrass bands in history.
It hails from the collection of Tut Taylor, the Folkswinger who co-founded Nashville’s beloved GTR Incorporated instrument shop (and the man from whom Neil Young bought Hank Williams’ Martin D-28). In a letter written in the summer of 2012, Taylor said he grew up listening to Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Band over Nashville’s WSM, the radio station that, beginning in 1925, spread the Grand Ole Opry gospel across the country with its Saturday-night broadcasts.
Taylor wrote that in the early 1950s, he noticed Flatt and Scruggs were no longer in Monroe’s band – and that “it broke my heart for I could not find where they went.” Eventually, Taylor found the pair in Virginia and began following them around “like a puppy,” recording many of their shows on his reel-to-reel. One night, Taylor recalled, he told Flatt how much he liked his guitar.
Flatt with the Foggy Mountain Boys
“Lester surprised me by saying, ‘I’ll just give you this one, but you’re gonna have to give me $25 for the case,’” Taylor wrote. “Needless to say, I was flabbergasted. He also gave me the guitar strap with his name on it.” Taylor held on to it for “a few years,” he wrote, until he parted with it “for a mere pittance.”
Nashville guitar guru George Gruhn has twice examined this guitar – first in 1978, then again in 2012, when he wrote, “Lester’s use of this instrument would make this guitar one of the most important guitars in the entire history of bluegrass music.”
ROBERT WILONSKY is a staff writer at Intelligent Collector.