BROWN IS BACK
Why today's makers are reviving the mahogany-topped guitar

By Marshall Newman

Guitars that are different have to be very special to survive in the marketplace, let alone to receive second chances. Clearly that’s the case with mahogany flattops. These brown guitars are suddenly enjoying a renaissance among both builders and players 70 years after their introduction and more than 20 years after their supposed demise.

"It’s the tone," observed Bob Taylor, whose Taylor Guitars played a major role in the return of all-mahogany instruments. "A mahogany soundboard on a mahogany body creates warm, full tone with a character all its own." In general, the sound of mahogany topwood is bigger than koa and more direct than spruce, making it a natural for acoustic blues.

Ironically, Hawaiian music--not blues--provided the inspiration for C.F. Martin to reconfigure the model 17 in 1922 to create the first all-mahogany guitar. Martin’s all-koa Hawaiian guitars, built to be played with a slide, were big sellers in the years after World War I, and a similar instrument for regular playing must have looked promising.

The tiny, spartan, inexpensive 2-17--the first Martin braced for steel strings-- was an immediate hit, with sales of more than 6,000 in the first eight years of production. Among the purchasers was a young Jimmie Rodgers, who used the instrument to create his blues-tinged style of country music before moving up to something fancier: a custom-built 000-45.

The association of blues and mahogany-topped guitars grew stronger in the late 1920s, when Gibson changed its spruce-and-maple L-0 to all mahogany. The change was short-lived--the model received a spruce top in 1932--but these early, medium-sized Gibson flattops soon gained favor among Delta bluesmen for their tone, volume, value, and flexibility (they sounded good flatpicked, fingerpicked, and played with a bottleneck slide).

The low prices of the Martin 2-17 and the Gibson L-0 were strong selling points, especially in the early days of the Depression. The Martin sold for $25 new, while the Gibson went for $35. In addition to providing players with instruments they could afford, these models probably helped both companies stay in business during those difficult times.

In the early 1930s, Martin expanded its mahogany-topped offerings to include the 0-17 and the 00-17, concert and grand concert sizes, respectively. With the growing popularity of big guitars, the company discontinued the size 2. Martin introduced its less expensive style 15, which combined all-mahogany construction with a matte finish, in concert size only, in 1940. Martin also made a few 000-17s in 1952, but the 15-inch–wide guitars didn’t catch on in mahogany, and the size was dropped after just 25 instruments.

Spruce shortages during and immediately after World War II caused Gibson to top a few round-shouldered J-45s and small-bodied LG-2s with mahogany. Mahogany tops didn’t return to Gibson’s regular production until 1958, with the introduction of the affordable LG-0, followed in 1967 by the even more affordable B-15 folk model. A few other guitar companies also built all-mahogany instruments during this era, most notably Guild, Epiphone, and Favilla.

The 1960s marked the beginning of the end for mahogany-topped acoustics. Despite robust sales, Martin discontinued production of its all-mahogany models in 1961. Gibson went to a spruce top on the LG-0 in 1969 and dropped the B-15 altogether. Guild filled the gap briefly by introducing the mahogany-topped D-25 in 1968, but it too went to a spruce top in the mid-1970s. After 1976, except for a handful of new instruments, the brown guitar was history.

History maybe, but not forgotten. Probably because of the quality they offered for the money, mahogany-topped instruments found favor among several folksingers at the beginning of their careers. Bob Dylan played a Martin 00-17 from the 1940s during his coffeehouse days, and Judy Collins accompanied herself on an 0-15 when she started out.

Old mahogany guitars also attracted a small but fanatical following among amateur guitarists and vintage guitar aficionados. Mahogany prewar Martins and wartime Gibsons in particular became prized by those who appreciated their distinctive voices and (with other guitars from the same eras fetching record prices) their remarkable affordability.

The mahogany renaissance began quietly in 1993, when a customer ordered a custom-built mahogany-topped instrument from Dana Bourgeois Guitars. Bourgeois, who had just started building guitars under his own name in Lewiston, Maine, liked the results so much that he continued (and continues) to offer mahogany on an informal basis. The original version, all mahogany with a rope binding, evolved in 1995 into the BB-110, a ladder-braced instrument built primarily for slide. Built one at a time to each buyer’s specifications, many of these guitars feature rare figured mahogany.

"We found the key to making a good mahogany top is thicknessing the wood to approximate the weight and stiffness of spruce," Bourgeois explained. "The nominal price of mahogany, when compared to spruce, is bringing it back into production by some builders, but it’s a wonderful topwood when you do it right. It has a very quick response and makes a very full and punchy guitar with decent sustain. In a blind test, most people wouldn’t know it wasn’t spruce."

In 1996, Taylor Guitars became the first major builder in 20 years to produce an all-mahogany guitar in significant quantities. "The idea originally came from T.J. Baden, our vice president of sales and marketing," noted Bob Taylor. "I was a little doubtful that they would find a market, but people really love them." Taylor initially built 100 of the limited-edition 412-M guitars, a version of the company’s popular 412 grand concert, with a mahogany top and gold tuners. Response was so strong that 200 instruments of a second, fancier limited edition, the 512-M, were produced later in the year. "We’ll probably make more all-mahogany instruments," Taylor predicted.

Any doubt that mahogany-topped guitars were truly back was dispelled earlier this year, when C.F. Martin announced that it was adding an all-mahogany D-15 to its product line. The simply appointed, satin-finished dreadnought became Martin’s lowest priced solid-wood guitar, with a suggested retail of less than $900.

"Chris Martin is a real fan of the company’s old mahogany-top guitars," commented Martin Guitars’ Dick Boak, "so much so that he tried to bring back the 00-17 in the early 1980s. He has always wanted to build in mahogany, but economic realities didn’t make it worthwhile until now.

"The technologies and efficiencies that we implemented in recent years for our Road and 1 series guitars--things like our new neck-to-body joint and computer-aided parts production--have finally made it possible for us to build all-mahogany guitars and keep them affordable. With the tremendous demand now for simple, basic, economical instruments, we think our all-mahogany guitars will find an accepting market. Right now, we make only the one all-mahogany model. It seems logical in the future that we’ll expand the 15 series to include either a 00 or 000, and perhaps even a jumbo, 12-string, or acoustic bass."

Last, but by no means least, all-mahogany guitars came full circle with the Santa Cruz Guitar Company’s PJ Limited Edition. Although it’s built with a solid peghead, the instrument pays homage to the original mahogany-topped guitar, the Martin 2-17, with its small size, wide neck, and 12-frets-to-the-body styling. The model was introduced at the 1997 National Association of Music Merchandisers (NAMM) convention, and Santa Cruz has since received orders for all ten instruments in the limited run.

With 70 years of history behind it, the mahogany-topped guitar now appears to be catching the ears of a new generation of guitarists. Considering all that history, it is certainly worth a listen.

Excerpted from
Acoustic Guitar magazine, September 1997, No. 57.

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