Chris Martin IV

For all their hell-raising, wild living and love of anti-establishment posturing, guitarists can be as besotted with heritage as any card-carrying National Trust devotee – and no brand delivers guitar heritage better than CF Martin & Company. The Nazareth, Pennsylvania-based doyen of acoustic guitars was founded in New York by German émigré Christian Frederick (Friedrich) Martin in 1833 and was one of the pioneers of the steel-string acoustic guitar, which was to become an essential component of popular music throughout the 20th century.

Plenty of other companies came and went during the intervening 187 years but Martin persevered and prospered – though not without a few ups and downs along the way – setting the benchmark against which other premium-quality acoustic instruments are measured.

What allowed Martin to climb to the top of the tree and remain there for the best part of 200 years? It wasn’t just product innovation. It’s true that Martin was at the bleeding edge of new developments in guitar-making, such as X-bracing and dovetail neck joints, and once it was perfected in the 1930s, the dreadnought became one of the most copied guitar shapes in history.

Similarly, the adoption of the 14th-fret body joint had a significant impact on the sound and playability of the modern acoustic guitar and was once again pretty much copied by everybody else.

What really set Martin apart, though, was quality, both of manufacture and sound – and what ensured both was an uncompromising sense of tradition. Martin remained a family-owned and run business and, however much a hired CEO may love their company and its products, it’s tough to imagine they could feel quite the same way about guarding the Martin name and legacy as Chris Martin IV does – the great-great-great-grandson of its founder, who runs the company today as chairman and CEO.

That isn’t to say