When flames consumed Willie Nelson’s Tennessee ranch in 1970 he didn’t grab family photos or cash. He sprinted into the burning building to rescue a single guitar in its case. That instrument a Martin N-20 named Trigger after Roy Rogers’ horse had been bought just a year earlier for 750 dollars after a drunk fan crushed his Baldwin acoustic. Nelson borrowed the money and purchased it sight unseen.
Over decades Trigger’s mellow nylon-string tone defined albums like Red Headed Stranger and Stardust. But Nelson’s aggressive flatpicking wore a massive hole through the European spruce top just below the soundhole. Luthier Mark Erlewine is only allowed to reinforce the internal mahogany bracing never patch the crater. Nelson strictly forbids any alteration to the worn wood.
The guitar’s surface became a physical diary of a life on the road. It started when Leon Russell asked Nelson to sign his guitar and Nelson asked for a signature in return. Soon his closest friends carved their names into the wood with a ballpoint pen. Today Trigger bears the faded signatures of Johnny Cash Waylon Jennings Kris Kristofferson and Roger Miller. Many of those names now belong to men who are no longer here.
In 1990 when the IRS seized Nelson’s properties over a massive tax debt he secretly shipped Trigger to Hawaii with his daughter Lana to keep it from auction. To Nelson losing real estate was a business problem but losing Trigger was unthinkable.
Nelson has stated repeatedly that if Trigger ever breaks beyond repair he will retire from performing
For more than fifty years he has played over ten thousand shows anchoring his entire legacy to a single battered Martin N-20. Every time the lights go down he still walks onto the stage holding that piece of wood carrying the physical scars of his career and the names of the men who are no longer here to play beside him.