Martin IV

“The demand for guitars has softened – that’s a story in its own right,” Chris Martin IV, CEO of the legendary acoustic guitar maker CF Martin & Co, told the Guardian.

The “Guitars, Cadillacs and Hillbilly Music” singer/songwriter was joined by Martin CEO Chris Martin IV and Jeff Allen, who heads up the company’s custom shop that crafted the new model D28 instrument.

Chris Martin IV, great-great-great grandson of the original Christian Frederick Martin who founded the Nazareth, Penn.-based company in 1833, smiled, looked across at Allen and quipped, “We should hire this guy.”

Martin IV showed off a 100th-anniversary special-edition “Dreadnought” guitar that revolutionized guitar playing upon its introduction a century ago amid World War I. El Cajon-based Taylor Guitars introduced the equivalent of the airline industry “black box” data recorder to assist guitar owners in caring for their instruments.

In fact, in 1285, Martin IV., in ordering a crusade preached against Pedro, gives as one of the four reasons alleged in justification that heresy was multiplying in the island, and that inquisitors were prevented from visiting it.