The guitar maker launches her acoustic guitar with an intimate performance live at the Gibson Garage in Nashville
Gibson has partnered with Margo Price for the Margo Price J-45 acoustic guitar. The new Gibson Margo Price J-45 was made in with significant design collaboration from Margo Price, including the stunning red-tailed hawk design featured on the double pickguards. Handcrafted by the expert luthiers at Gibson acoustic in Bozeman, Montana, the Gibson Margo Price J-45 is available worldwide via Gibson.com, in the Gibson Garage Nashville and London, and at authorized Gibson dealers.
“I’ve been playing Gibson guitars for over two and a half decades so it’s an absolute dream come true to have a signature model,” says Price. “This guitar is so special to me, and we really put the time into making it exactly what I wanted. It’s strong but soft, just like me, and has the duality of being durable and lightweight, it’s got a slim body, so my tiny hands can reach everything they need to but it still has a really clear, loud sound that cuts through with a lot of clarity. We have been playing the prototype on stage and writing songs on it for this upcoming album and it’s a real workhorse, just like me.”
Last Friday, Price unveiled her new Gibson Margo Price J-45 acoustic guitar live at the Gibson Garage Nashville flagship store thrilling fans with a riveting live performance on her new J-45 guitar. Margo and her band performed her songs “Hands of Time,” “Don’t Wake me Up,” “Wild at Heart,” and “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down.”
Price’s Gibson J-45 acoustic has always been by her side during her rise as a top country artist. Gibson’s new Margo Price J-45 embodies the spirit, vision, and talent that has driven Margo to stardom and continues the nature-themed model tradition of Gibson. The Margo Price J-45 was inspired by her mid-60s J-45, a guitar she’s called “my main baby; my guitar I play all the time.” This high performance J-45 features a lighter-weight and a slightly thinner mahogany body depth for excellent playing comfort, and a red spruce top for tonal superiority. The guitar features traditional hand-scalloped advance X-bracing for a wide dynamic range, a mahogany neck with a Rounded profile and rosewood fretboard, and Grover strap tuners with white buttons. The nut and saddle are bone, and the bridge pins are TUSQ. The Margo Price J-45 arrives in a gorgeous Heritage Cherry Sunburst finish, and comes fully-equipped with L.R. Baggs electronics, so it’s studio and stage ready right out of the included hardshell case. Margo was also inspired by Red-tailed Hawks, which feature prominently on the distinctive double 50s-style pickguards of her new J-45 signature guitar.
Margo adds, “Red Tailed hawks have always been symbolic to me. I see them everywhere, and I always have, as they’re common all over the U.S., but to me, they’re otherworldly, and they always come to me in my time of need with messages of strength and perseverance. Red, as a color, relates to love, passion, and even anger, matters that we typically would associate with the heart, but if you look closely, the ends of their feathers are dipped in white, and the bird itself has a spiritual nature. When I’m on long trips, I look out the window and count them alongside the highway. They pass over me at the most kismet times, reminding me to find strength in my vulnerability, and to open up and connect with those around me. I hope this guitar will remind those who play it these lessons as well.”
Margo Price has something to say but nothing to prove. In just three remarkable solo albums, the singer and songwriter has cemented herself as a force in American music and a generational talent. A deserving critical darling, she has never shied away from the sounds that move her, the pain that’s shaped her, or the topics that tick her off, like music industry double standards, the gender wage gap, or the plight of the American farmer (In 2021, she even joined the board of Farm Aid.)
On her fourth and most recent full-length Strays, a clear-eyed mission statement delivered in blistering rock and roll, she’s taking on substance abuse, self-image, abortion rights, and orgasms. Musically extravagant but lyrically laser-focused, the 10-song record tears into a broken world desperate for remedy. And who better to tell it? Price has done plenty of her own rebuilding—or as she shout sings in explanation on “Been to the Mountain,” the set’s throat-ripping opener, “I have to the mountain and back alright”—and finds herself, at long last, free. Feral. Stray.
Price recently released an extra nine songs with Strays II in digital and vinyl, and partnered with singer-songwriter Billy Strings for the single “Too Stoned To Cry.”
