The Sultan of Guitars
You may never be able to own Kenny Sultan’s guitar, but the
release of a new model of Martin acoustic guitar allows musicians
to own a Kenny Sultan guitar.
The idiom states that a familiar name should cause a bell to
ring, but hearing “Kenny Sultan” should
rightly pluck the strings of some mental blues guitar. Santa
Barbara residents and blues fans alike should know that Sultan has
long brought his prowess to area venues after discovering the blues
genre during his days at UCSB in 1979. Now, Sultan’s name has been
even further linked to guitar-based music with the production of
the 000-18 Kenny Sultan Sunburst Custom Edition. The instrument is
based on small-bodied the Martin-brand guitars from the ‘30s and
‘40s that Martin has long collected — in particular, a Martin
000-18 Martin Sunburst that Sultan uses as his primary guitar for
recording and performing. Each guitar also bears an interior label
signed by Sultan.
In a press release, Sultan said that guitar “duplicates all of
the essential elements that make my vintage 000 great.”