If these guitars could talk: The names behind famous guitars from Ashley McBryde to Willie Nelson

Yahoo

09-06-2025

If only that guitar could talk.
If Dinah could, she might say she misses being out on the road living her best life in front of massive crowds in the arms of Ashley McBryde.
Iggy, on the other hand, might reveal some details about all the times her owner Koe Wetzel has cracked her, then shipped her off to be put back together. She's a rebound kinda girl. Comes back sounding better every time.
Many folks know Willie Nelson's Trigger, Eddie Van Halen's Frankenstein, Kirk Hammett's Greeny and B.B. King's Lucille. But countless musicians have names for their well-worn axes. The Tennessean sat down with some Nashville musicians who play old guitars that are more like children to them than mere musical instruments.
One theme was common throughout: these guitars — who all have names — have some stories to tell beyond the songs that come out of them.
Koe Wetzel said Iggy was one of his first, big guitar purchases when he found her in 2018.
"I've always been kind of a Gibson guy, so whenever this guitar came across, I'd never seen a guitar like it," Wetzel told The Tennessean of his 2018 Gibson Custom Shop J-200 Iguana Burst. "This one just had that iguana green burst to it and I really was drawn to it. After I got to playing it was one of the better-sounding guitars that I'd, heard in a while."
A few months after purchasing Iggy, Wetzel was playing Mardi Gras Festival in Dallas and beat it up pretty good, he said.
"I went to go beating on it and the whole thing cracked pretty much. And I thought it was ruined but I took it to one of my buddies who glued it up and made it sound good again."
Wetzel calls Iggy his baby even though playing her on stage every night is a rough life for an ole gal.
"I call her my baby, but I treat her like sh*t, to be honest with you. She's seen it all. If that guitar could talk, we'd all be in trouble. But, it seems like every time I send it to the shop because of something that's gone bad with her, she comes back sounding better is it's one of the best sounding guitars that I have. For it to be as beat up as it is, it's kind of crazy for it to sound as good as it does."
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Ashley McBryde is still going strong, but her prized 2009 Gibson J-45 acoustic guitar Dinah, is retired.
After 14 years of life on the road, Dinah has seen her share of dings, scratches and is coated with a thick layer of hairspray. So now, in her old age, Dinah gets to come out of her case only for songwriting sessions and shows at the Grand Ole Opry.
McBryde bought the guitar in 2011, and named her Dinah because she said she played her a lot in the kitchen.
She said she played every J-45 on the wall at the Memphis Guitar Center and after playing Dinah, said "this is the one." She came back to buy the guitar and it was gone. It had been sold to someone else, so McBryde tracked them down and bought her back.
"I started playing her when I was 28," McBryde said. "I'm 41 now and she has been on my leg or draped across me on a strap for that long. She is so important now that if something happens to her, this isn't a 'go pick up another J-45' situation. I built a career on this guitar."
So to avoid anything happening to her, McBryde decided it was time for her to retire.
" I had a nice talk with her and I said, 'What if you're done being on the road? What if you're done getting knocked around in and out of things? You're done having to go to festivals and get beat up and sit in the sun and the rain? And, and what if all you have to do for the rest of your days is play on the Grand Ole Opry stage?'"
When asked what Dinah thinks of retirement, without missing a beat, McBryde smiles and says, "I think she's digging it."
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Stephen Wilson Jr.'s guitar named One might be second in line to Trigger for the stage guitar with the most battle scars. One has holes that have been taped up and is scarred with so many guitar pic scratches the finish is worn down.
But Wilson says if someone offered him a million dollars for it, he wouldn't take it.
"I've been playing classical guitars; really bad ones my whole life, but I've always loved them," he told The Tennessean. "I wanted a good one, so I started doing research and realized good didn't necessarily mean really expensive."
Wilson Jr. bought One for $400 out of the trunk of someone's car in the Berry Hill area of Nashville. It was 2012.
He says his hands were drawn to the width of the guitar's neck, which is larger-scale than most guitars.
" I put my hands on it and instantly it was like, this is like my guitar forever. This is the guitar I've been looking for my whole life. I offered him 400 bucks and he took it. I would've given him $4,000. I didn't have $4,000, but I would've," he said.
He added that songwriters joke that when they are looking for a new guitar, they put their ear up to it and jokingly say, "Yeah, that sounds like it's got some songs in it."
" All jokes aside, I've written thousands of songs on this guitar and it's got thousands more, I hope."
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Blues musician B. B. King had several similar guitars who all shared the same name: "Lucille." While there are many artists who play named guitars, Lucille might have the best back-story of how she got her name.
In 1949, King was playing at a dance hall in Arkansas. A bar fight broke out between two men that ignited a fire in the hall. King, who had evacuated the building, ran back inside to find his $30 Gibson guitar he had left inside. He would later learn the fight was started over a woman named Lucille. Legend has it he named that guitar, and others that would follow after the woman as a reminder to never do anything as stupid as running into a burning building.
He wrote the song "Lucille" which explains the story of how she got her name. While some of the Lucilles were Fender Stratocasters, the ones he is known for are black Gibson ES-335 and 355 guitars.
"Rolling Stone" recounts an incredible story about the 80th Birthday model that Gibson made for King. It became his main instrument from 2005 until 2009, when it was stolen. The guitar would later turn up in a Las Vegas pawn shop. Guitar trader Eric Dahl made the discovery and told Gibson.com, 'The whole thing was covered in sweat. The strings were nasty. Then I flipped it over and looked at the headstock and it said, 'Prototype 1' in a white stamp…. I assumed it meant this was one of the original 80th Birthday model Lucilles that B.B. King had approved.'
Dahl would learn the instrument he found was not just a Lucille approved by B.B. King but the actual Lucille King had been playing. King met with Dahl and as a thank you, traded him a new Lucille in exchange for his 80th Birthday model he thought he'd lost forever.
Arguably the most famous beat-up guitar that is still being played live on concert stages across the country, is Willie Nelson's treasured modified Martin N-20 nylon-string classical acoustic guitar "Trigger." Nelson bought the guitar in 1969 after his previous one was damaged.
When asked about the guitar's name, Nelson has said it is named after Roy Rogers' horse. "Roy Rogers had a horse named Trigger. I figured, this is my horse," he has famously said.
Trigger has holes, scratches and its fretboard is worn down nearly flat. But it also has a hundred or so autographs. And a lot of blood, sweat and tears from being played by Nelson for some 50 years. It has survived house fires and decades of life on the road.
In 2015, Rolling Stone Films created a documentary, "Mastering the Craft: Trigger," delving into the legend that is Nelson's guitar.
Why does Nelson continue to play such an old, worn out instrument? "I think it's the best-sounding guitar I've ever played," he said in the documentary.
Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett remembers as a teenager, looking at his musical hero Gary Moore's guitar he played on Hammett's favorite Thin Lizzy album and thinking "What a great guitar. I wish I had a guitar as cool as that."
Fast forward to today, the 1959 Les Paul Standard originally owned by Peter Green — founder of Fleetwood Mac — and later owned and played by Moore, is now part of Hammett's collection. Not one just like those heroes played, but the exact same guitar.
"I managed to acquire Greeny," Hammett told The Tennessean. "I play Greeny pretty much every day on stage and in my hotel room."
Greeny is named for its original owner and is estimated to be worth millions. Known for its unique tone caused by a magnet in one of the pickups being installed backwards, resulting in a unique sound that has been sought after by other players.
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One of the most famous guitars in rock music is Eddie Van Halen's "Frankenstein" or "Frankenstrat" as it is also known. The late Van Halen, co-founder of the band by the same name with his brother Alex, built the guitar from an assemblage of random parts to create his "monster," hence the name.
Frankenstein made its debut on the cover of the band's "Van Halen" record and was white with black stripes across it. Van Halen later painted the guitar's body red with Schwinn bicycle paint and added black and white stripes, which became the iconic look the guitar is known for. In addition to the trademark paint job that has been often replicated, the real Frankenstein also proudly displays the wear and tear, scratches, dings, and flaws played into the guitar by it's hero.
While the guitar's parts cost several hundred dollars when they were assembled in the early '70s, the instrument today is invaluable. The original is owned by Van Halen's son Wolfgang, who is also a guitar player and frontman for the band Mammoth.
The younger Van Halen has used Frankenstein on every Mammoth album to date. His latest single, "The End," features his dad's guitar on the intro.
A copy of the guitar resides in the National Museum of American History, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
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Melonee Hurt covers music and music business at The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK — Tennessee. Reach Melonee at [e-mail] or on Instagram at @MelHurtWrites.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: The names behind famous guitars from Ashley McBryde to Willie Nelson