There would be no Trigger if not for a steel guitar and dobro player named Harold Jackson, better known as Shot Jackson. Besides performing with such classic country musicians as Roy Acuff and Kitty Wells, he also crafted his own instruments and repaired them as well. Willie Nelson sent his broken Baldwin to Jackson to see what could be done for it. As it turned out, it was beyond repair. Jackson mentioned that he’d recently gotten a Martin N 20 nylon-stringed guitar he might be interested in. “Is it any good?” Nelson asked (via Texas Monthly). “Well, Martins are known for good guitars,” Jackson told him.
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Nelson bought the guitar sight unseen for $750, the equivalent of more than $6,000 today. It turned out to be a worthwhile investment. “I had my man Shot Jackson, a guitar genius in Nashville, customize the Martin by integrating the guts and the pickup from the Baldwin,” Nelson recalled in “It’s a Long Story.” “It worked. I had the sound I’d been looking for. I heard it as a human sound, a sound close to my own voice.”
