Gurian B-series S3M

This is a 1972 Gurian S3M, a New York model. Spruce top, mahogany back and sides, ebony fingerboard. It's basically a variation on a Grand Concert size with a long scale neck and a relatively shallow body. No features in the modern sense of the word, it was just the best guitar I could find for $325 (1972) Dollars.

When I bought this guitar, I'd already been listening to Renbourn/Jansch for a couple of years and started playing in local coffeehouses--I was doing OK with my Yamaha FG-180, but when I got my first tax refund it was time for a REAL guitar. Off I went to Pittsburgh on a mission--luckily I found the Gurian in the first store I stopped--I've since learned that serious GAS takes more than one day!

The store I went to had several different brands of guitars, but I already knew I wasn't going to get the sound I wanted out of your run of the mill Gibson or Martin--I'd played my friends' guitars!

I mentioned that I was looking for a guitar to start working on learning the Renbourn pieces to the owner of the shop, who went over and pulled this somewhat odd looking guitar off the wall and said, "Try this, it's as good as any new Martin."

At that time, you could still tell it was a new guitar, but the tone it would have was already there, just not as loud and a little tight--and it played like butter, no sales pitch needed here.

Thirty-five years later, the sound changes a little depending on how often I play it, but it's a balanced, rich tone with good projection, almost too pretty sounding to play Blues on. One other unusual aspect is that what you hear while you're playing is pretty much what the audience is hearing, which is pretty uncommon, but I've made tapes that bear this out.

The factory setup was excellent, back then you just didn't find many acoustics that were usable out of the box (unless you played bluegrass, lol), plus the fingerboard has a tighter radius for easier chording.

The back of the neck has a V shape up to about the fifth fret,where it becomes a more rounded shape to accommodate playing leads.

The finish is very thin and brittle, chips easily, which is one reason I don't play out with it anymore--probably the only bad thing about the guitar, but most likely the best thing they had in 1972.

I used this guitar on stage the day I bought it, and pretty regularly until the early '90's when I broke down and started using guitars with pickups built in, it's just a lot easier.

I have reset the neck a couple times, and put a new bridge on about ten years ago, but no cracks in the wood or separated glue joints, pretty good so far.

Never dealt with Gurian, the store I bought the guitar from had gone belly up by the time the neck needed reset, and I didn't like the idea of shipping it off, so I did the job myself. I'm a repairman, I can do that.

I've been playing 40 years. Pretty much every day. No breaks for college, job, wife, family, etc. Let someone else play guitar in church, I don't get up that early!

Suffice it to say, I'm not your average corksniffing yuppie acoustic guitarist--the ones who can't handle electric guitar, let alone play one.

I play electric AND acoustic and different styles on each, plus slide so I have several instruments, most of which I got cheap and rebuilt, so out of twenty instruments, only the S3M has any collectors' value--but that doesn't worry me, I bought it to play it.

At this point, replacing the Gurian would be nearly impossible with what greedy collectors have done to the used market--so I'm quite happy taking my Charvel 625C to shows and playing the piss out of my "pearl inlaid beater".

One last thing--I spoke with Howard Roberts at a show in Seattle in 1981--I'll always kick myself for forgetting to ask him if he REALLY
chopped up that Martin and burned it in his fireplace.