New York–based guitarist Grant Gordy is a highly versatile player who is just as comfortable playing jazz as he is playing bluegrass. A former member of the David Grisman Quintet/Sextet, Grant currently plays in the band Mr Sun, which also includes Peghead Nation instructor Joe K. Walsh, and Grant’s latest solo album, Peripheral Visions, was released earlier this year. Grant recently joined Joe in the Peghead Nation video studio to help shoot lessons for Joe’s mandolin and octave mandolin courses, and while we had him in front of the cameras, we asked him to record a demo of the Hiroshi Suda 000 that has become his primary guitar (also check out his demo of the 1944 Martin 000-18 he was playing when he visited our studio in 2016).
Based in Osaka, Japan, luthier Hiroshi Suda specializes in instruments based on American “golden era” flattops. Grant first became aware of Hiroshi’s instruments at an IBMA convention several years ago, and he eventually ended up with one of the builder’s dreadnoughts. But after playing his vintage Martin 000 for a while, Grant found that he wasn’t playing the dreadnought, so he asked Hiroshi to build him a similar instrument. Grant’s guitar is built with mahogany back and sides and a spruce top and features traditional style-18 appointments.
“I’ve been playing it pretty incessantly since the fall of 2019,” Grant says, adding that he’s drawn to the dynamic of the instrument. “It holds up in a lot of situations, which is great for me, because I play a lot of different kinds of music. For example, with Mr Sun, we’ll do anything from swing-jazz material to original material to bluegrass, and this guitar works great for all of it.”
To hear Grant play the guitar with Mr Sun, check out this video of the band performing “Blackbird” for Peghead Nation during the 2022 Wintergrass festival!
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