Trigger: the guitar that became a part of Willie Nelson
The Nashville sound was loved by many and took the world by storm, but it was also incredibly restrictive in what it allowed musicians to do. This restriction led to Willie Nelson helping to discover the outlaw country subgenre. Since then, he has become one of America’s most-loved country singers. His ability to create beautiful sounds no matter the circumstances contributes massively to that.
Nelson has a simplistic attitude towards music that has led to him creating some of the much-beloved country songs available today. He once said, “According to my grandmother, the definition of music is anything that’s pleasing to the ear. Once I learned that, I quit thinking about it.”
This mindset never left Nelson, as even when he found fame (and the subsequent fortune that will have come with it), he didn’t feel the need to let that impact how he made music. This is most widely personified by his guitar, Trigger, which followed him throughout his career and is still used today.
It’s hard for artists to find a signature sound, and overthinking how to develop it is never a good move. Nelson stumbled upon his signature sound; in a way, he allowed it to come to him rather than going too far out of his depth to find it. This came with the discovery and adaptation of Trigger.
In the early stages of his career, he had experimented with a few guitars to try and find the best one for him; however, they were only somewhat cutting it. He had a Baldwin guitar that he liked but got damaged, so he opted for Trigger, a Martin N-20 nylon string classical acoustic guitar.
He didn’t just take the guitar on its surface, though. He states now that he was looking to emulate Django Reinhardt’s sound, so he was keen on taking the sound of an acoustic guitar and amplifying it. He took the electrical components from his old Baldwin guitar and installed them into his new Martin one. With that, Trigger was born, and the country star has never looked back.
A buzzing and a ringing accompanies Nelson’s playing style; it follows him around and is hard to ignore, but it is quintessentially him. That’s Trigger, the sound of the electronics in an acoustic guitar, which creates that unique energised sound. It gives Nelson’s songs a raw quality, making them more accessible on a human level.
The sound of this guitar is something that Nelson isn’t keen to let go of; as such, this guitar has become a part of him and is an intrinsic component of his career. The beaten-up wooden body and faint buzz are all that’s needed for someone to know that it’s the product of Willie Nelson, and the simplicity in its creation and maintenance reflects his attitude towards making music.
