LOCAL COLOR I BY LIZ REPH


PHOTOS BY SABOTTA IMAGERY PHOTOGRAPHY MARTIN GUITAR


Celebrated throughout the world for its top-quality instruments, C. F. Martin & Com- pany has been headquartered in Nazareth for the past 175 years. Although they are best known for guitars – which have been famously played by performers such as Eric Clap- ton, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Ed- die Vedder and Woody Guthrie – Martin & Co. has a long history crafting a variety of stringed instruments.


C. F. Martin is a family-run company currently in its sixth generation. Its founder, Christian Frederick Martin (the original “C. F.”), was born to a long line of cabinetmakers and wood- workers in Germany in 1796. At age fi fteen he was apprenticed to a renowned guitar maker in Vienna, where he learned the skills of the trade that would shape his family’s future.


In late 1833, seeking opportunities beyond what his native land could off er, Martin, his young wife and children immigrated to the United States. Settling in New York City, he established C. F. Martin & Company and, by early 1834, had opened a shop at 196 Hudson Street in the Lower West Side of Manhattan.


26 JUNE/JULY 2014


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