Alvarez - Baritone ‘ABT60E’

I first became interested in baritone acoustic guitars in the early 2000s. Two albums were instrumental in my passion for these instruments: Ani Difranco’s ‘Revelling/Reckoning’ and Pat Metheny’s ‘One Quiet Night’. This is the gift I gave myself when I got my music degree. It’s a beautiful Alvarez, a brand that makes really good mid-prized guitars played by the likes of Jerry Garcia, Carlos Santana, David Crosby, Ani Difranco, Graham Nash and Joe Bonamassa.

A baritone guitar is a complete different beast from a normal acoustic. Forget strumming with this thing! It’s at its best with arpeggios and gentle, slow fingerpicking. The model I got is the one fitted with an under-saddle Element pickup, which is pretty useless, to be totally frank! Shame because I’ve seen videos of earlier models and I seem to remember they had Fishman pickups that sounded absolutely fine. In hindsight, I should have got the cheaper version without the pickup and bought yet another Fishman Rare Earth instead. But you know me, I never complain.

I think I’ve only used this guitar on stage once or twice, as it’s such a peculiar instrument, it would probably only be used on a couple of songs, so until I have a team of roadies working for me I’m not going to bother. Or perhaps I should write a set of tunes on it so that it can have its own bespoke repertoire. A lightbulb just went off in my head! It surely is a great instrument to compose, because you tend to come up with things that would just not happen on a normal acoustic.