Willie Nelson's guitar has a hole worn through its top, a pile of signatures on its face and a luthier in Austin who has been keeping it alive since the 1970s. It is a Martin classical guitar named Trigger, and at 93 Willie still takes it on stage.

Bought Over the Phone

Willie got the guitar in 1969, after a Baldwin acoustic of his was damaged at a show in Helotes, Texas. A repairman named Shot Jackson moved the Baldwin's pickup into a Martin N-20 from his shop, and Willie bought it without ever holding it, for $750.

He did not call it Trigger right away. About two decades later he named it after Roy Rogers' horse. "Roy Rogers had a horse named Trigger," he said. "I figured, this is my horse!"

Trigger, Willie Nelson's Martin N-20 guitar, on a stage stand with the worn hole above the bridge and the scarred, signed top clearly visible — Trigger's worn top, hole above the bridge (photo: Mike Prosser, CC BY-SA 2.0)

A Hole Where the Pick Lands

The guitar was built to be played with the fingers and never had a pickguard. Willie plays it hard with a flatpick, and over the years the pick wore a large hole above the bridge, nearly reaching the sound hole.

Willie's longtime luthier says the playing style is the cause. "Willie loves Django Reinhardt's music and plays aggressively to get that sound," Mark Erlewine told Vintage Guitar. "It's just from his fingernails and pick hitting the top."

More than 100 musicians, associates and friends have signed the top, beginning with Leon Russell.

The Man Who Keeps It Playable

Mark Erlewine started working on Trigger in 1977, when Willie's road manager Poodie Locke began bringing the guitar to his Austin shop. Erlewine shores up the worn top with braces and patches of spruce and other hardwoods.

Most of the time the job is simpler. During breaks in the band's touring, the guitar mostly needs cleaning and re-sealing of the top, with the occasional glued part, new tuner or pickup repair.

Willie once told Erlewine: "As long as this guitar keeps going, I'll keep going."

Still on the Road

Willie turned 93 in April. On September 26 he played Farm Aid, the festival he helped start, at the Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater in Virginia Beach, with Trigger by his side.

The guitar has been his main instrument for more than half a century, and it is still the one he walks on stage with.

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