{"id":865947,"date":"2025-08-17T22:13:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T03:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/17\/americana-champion-margo-price-takes-flight-with-her-new-signature-gibson-j-45\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T22:13:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T03:13:13","slug":"americana-champion-margo-price-takes-flight-with-her-new-signature-gibson-j-45","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/17\/americana-champion-margo-price-takes-flight-with-her-new-signature-gibson-j-45\/","title":{"rendered":"Americana Champion Margo Price Takes Flight with Her New Signature Gibson J-45"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Margo Price\u2019s signature Gibson J-45 is framed by twin pickguards inlaid with a quartet of red-tailed hawks\u2014a nod to Gibson\u2019s classic motifs of hummingbirds and doves and a mark of Price\u2019s own distinctive spirit. But for Price, those hawks run deeper: over the last decade she\u2019s carved out a singular space in modern Americana with sharp, soul-baring songwriting, fierce independence, and vintage-informed roots sensibilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cDriving back and forth from Nashville to my folks\u2019 place in Illinois, I would see these beautiful red-tailed hawks, and I always found a lot of wisdom and resilience in them,\u201d explains Price, 42, a Tennessee resident for decades now. \u201cThey\u2019re watchers; they\u2019re looking out for us, and we sure need that now.\u201d It\u2019s perhaps no coincidence that the hawks are said to be the protector spirits of the Cherokee Nation, divine messengers that carry the news of dreams realized, or as Price puts it, \u201cmessages of strength and perseverance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perseverance has led Price to the career landmark of a Gibson J-45 with her name on it, the hardscrabble work that took place even before her breakout debut, Midwest Farmer\u2019s Daughter<\/a><\/em> (released under Jack White\u2019s Third Man imprint in 2016), earned her the 2017 American Music Prize for Best Debut Album. Since then, she\u2019s received Grammy nominations, appeared on Saturday Night Live,<\/em> become a staple at the historic Ryman Auditorium, and hit the road with the Tedeschi Trucks Band, Tyler Childers, Willie Nelson, and more. Her narrative of vulnerable defiance, rooted in her rural upbringing, was crystallized in \u201cHands of Time,\u201d the mid-century-style country ballad released in 2016 that became her signature song\u2014a thread she continues to explore on her latest album, Hard Headed Woman<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

I recently sat down with Margo Price at the Gibson Garage in Nashville during the unveiling of her new signature J-45 to talk about her bond with her instruments, her songwriting philosophy, and more.<\/p>\n

Finding the One<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cMy first guitar was a Samick,\u201d recalls Price, \u201cand after that I begged my folks for a Takamine. Eventually I\u2019d find my great-uncle\u2019s mid-\u201950s Gibson LG-3 in my grandmother\u2019s closet, in very bad shape, with its neck snapped off.\u201d Price\u2019s great-uncle? None other than veteran Nashville songwriter Bobby Fischer, who\u2019s penned hit songs for everyone from Charlie Pride to George Jones to Reba McEntire. Perhaps Fischer\u2019s magic rubbed off. Once Price had the old LG-3 repaired, it became her central learning, songwriting, and performance tool\u2014until an advance on her first album gave her the means to find her Excalibur.<\/p>\n

\u201cI walked into Carter\u2019s Vintage Guitars here in Nashville,\u201d Price explains. \u201cI went in with a very open mind\u2014I tried Gibsons, Martins, and Taylors, but when I picked up that mid-\u201960s Gibson J-45 I immediately loved the size of it, the sound, and the feeling of it. I didn\u2019t want to put it down. OK, I couldn\u2019t<\/em> put it down!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The guitar quickly became Price\u2019s main ax for writing, recording and performing. Price had a K&K Sound Double Helix pickup installed in it for live shows, and hasn\u2019t looked back since. \u201cIt\u2019s my main baby, the guitar I play all the time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Designing the Signature Model<\/strong><\/h2>\n

With Price\u2019s increasingly high profile, her J-45 began to enter public consciousness as well. A signature version was imminent. Enter Gibson\u2019s acoustic guitar guru Robi Johns, who helped Price produce a personalized take on her beloved J-45, with changes like a narrower waist, a red spruce top, and built-in L.R. Baggs VTC electronics. The guitar\u2019s elaborate dual pickguard, above and below the soundhole, which evokes the design of models like the Gibson Everly Brothers J-180, is stunning, but as Price explains, it\u2019s not just for show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll notice that my longtime J-45 has a huge amount of wear on the body, especially the area above the soundhole,\u201d she explains, \u201cbecause I strum pretty hard right there. So the dual pickguards weren\u2019t just about aesthetics. Yes, I love the way they look, but I really wanted my signature model to have that extra protection, because it\u2019s such a nice guitar.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Likewise, the rich cherry sunburst finish\u2014noticeably more vibrant than that on her old J-45\u2014was anything but a random choice, nor were the red-tailed hawks who adorn the pickguard. As Price explains, \u201cRed, as a color, relates to matters of the heart, but if you look closely, the ends of the hawks\u2019 feathers are dipped in white, and the birds have a distinctly spiritual nature to them. When I\u2019m on long road trips, they pass over me at the most kismet times, reminding me to find strength in my vulnerability and to open up and connect to those around me. I hope this guitar will remind those who play it of these lessons as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

Sketches and Notebooks<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Price, a prolific writer who draws from a deep well of reference points, calls herself a believer in the idea that \u201cif you can\u2019t remember the melody, you have to ask yourself if it\u2019s worth going back to.\u201d Songs like \u201cSince You Put Me Down,\u201d from her 2016 debut, and the lovely acoustic tune \u201cLydia\u201d from 2023\u2019s Strays<\/a><\/em>, contain more than their share of indelible phrases.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whether fingerpicked or played with a pick, Price\u2019s acoustic parts are the pillar of both the architecture and the groove of her songs. Even in concert, and on tracks with electric guitars and drums, her chordal work, with its hammer-ons and ornamentation, is central.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

Her inner game of songwriting is an open-ended one, she says, part of her art of living. Ideas can come from everywhere, at any time. Price says, \u201cIf I\u2019m talking to someone and they say something funny or interesting, I\u2019ll jot that down. Or ideas can come from being with the band, standing over by the drums, or when my husband [guitarist and songwriter Jeremy Ivey] has a guitar idea I can bounce off. Sometimes it\u2019s just a scrap of melody that comes to me. The best songs arrive like lightning: you get the whole theme of the song all at once. Others require a lot more wrestling.\u201d<\/p>\n

These days, Price documents her budding song ideas with the Audigo portable wireless microphone and recording app for iOS [see review in the November\/December 2024 issue], with its pleasing stereo spread. \u201cThe Audigo sounds great,\u201d Price says, \u201cand on your iPhone you can add reverb, EQ, compression, and delay to tailor the sound a bit more.\u201d Pretty modern stuff, though Price confesses that her lyric-writing process depends on more, shall we say, antiquated technology. \u201cYeah,\u201d she laughs, \u201cI still like to write my lyrics down in a good ol\u2019 fashioned notebook. So, call me old school.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Larisa Culton
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Margo Price\u2019s signature Gibson J-45 is framed by twin pickguards inlaid with a quartet of red-tailed hawks\u2014a nod to Gibson\u2019s classic motifs of hummingbirds and doves and a mark of Price\u2019s own distinctive spirit. But for Price, those hawks run deeper: over the last decade she\u2019s carved out a singular space in modern Americana with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":865948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31477,1884],"tags":[16906,8323],"class_list":{"0":"post-865947","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-americana","8":"category-champion","9":"tag-americana","10":"tag-champion"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}