Interview: Margaret Glaspy on the magic of her 1932 Gibson L-00

“That guitar feels like a real companion for me” 

Although for most of her career she has been known primarily as an electric guitarist, singer-songwriter Margaret Glaspy recently went unplugged—literally, without a cable or monitors in sight—for an ongoing series of acoustic shows that have seen her special blend of introspective and narrative songwriting connect with her audience in new and beautiful ways.

A resident of New York since the age of 21, Glaspy grew up in Northern California and was a fiddle player as a child. Reconnecting with the acoustic world birthed 2024’s stripped-down EP, The Sun Doesn’t Think, while new album I Am Both continues to feature the acoustic guitar front and center. For the most part, Glaspy’s acoustic of choice is her remarkable 1932 Gibson L-00—a vintage instrument which has become something of a muse in her songwriting process.

We caught up with Margaret to find out more and wondered how the physical intimacy offered by the compact anatomy of a small-bodied acoustic guitar translates into song. “There’s kind of a difference to me in playing a guitar that speaks outward and one that speaks inward,” Margaret says. “I write a lot of songs on that instrument and I think it’s because it feels like we’re speaking to each other, really having a conversation. And it’s a guitar from 1932, so there’s also this X-factor of it being old, and beautiful, and really lived in, and having seen a lot of life.

“There’s something about that guitar that makes me feel like I want to write stories with it and I want to create worlds with that instrument. It’s interesting with guitars—sometimes a guitar is like, wood and metal, and then sometimes a guitar is like a vessel. It’s got a life to it. Without that X-factor, it feels like materials. With the X-factor it feels like it’s this companion. So that guitar feels like a real companion for me.” 

As enthralling as the sound of her L-00 is, we wonder if Margaret is ever tempted to reach for a dreadnought or Jumbo-sized acoustic to provide different textures. “I got curious about the J-45™, thinking about that world, getting a little bigger for tour, to have it project a little more,” she admits. “But I tried it and it didn’t quite feel like the right thing. Then I tried the Roy Smeck world a little bit, I tried the Jumbo world a little bit too, but that didn’t ever really feel like the right thing. I don’t think it’s just because of the size. There’s a quality of sound I get from that L-00 that is really beautiful.”

Like so many songwriters over the past 95 years, Glaspy finds that when it comes to fingerstyle playing, the L-00 delivers in a way that even other great guitars do not. “On this new record that I made, there’s a lot of fingerpicking and a lot of strumming. I find that when I’m strumming a J-45 it speaks really well, but when I’m fingerpicking it doesn’t feel like it does the same thing. On the L-00, fingerpicking sounds gorgeous and then strumming I sometimes have to kind of pull it out of it a little bit more, and kind of figure out how to do that. I wouldn’t say it’s a struggle, but that can be a learning curve with those smaller guitars.”

When it comes to the low end, Margaret has a few tricks up her sleeve to ensure that the compact L-00 still delivers plenty of depth. “Not that it doesn’t have any low end, but at times you kind of have to create the illusion of a little more low end in order for it to feel like a slightly bigger guitar,” she says. “I used to play in Drop D but I don’t do that so much anymore. I have a lot of small-bodied acoustic guitars so I’m always speaking in that language a little bit and I feel like I know how they operate. Sometimes just putting the whole guitar down a half step is really great. It feels like it gives a little bit more body than just being in standard.

“I think it’s also a right-hand touch thing—and with that guitar I feel like that’s what I’m figuring out sometimes; it’s how to make it feel like it’s not just a small guitar, because it has a lot to say, and on the E and A strings sometimes I’m trying to figure out how to give them a little more depth. And also how to mic it and take it into a live setting. Live, I’m only using mics right now—I’ve never put any kind of pickup in that guitar, which these days feels very radical!”

As democratizing a force as digital technology has been for guitar players, now almost every concert you attend involves the use of cutting edge tech for tone-shaping and sophisticated monitoring. Ironically, something that used to be the norm—a solo musician on stage with an acoustic guitar playing into one microphone and singing into another—really is unusual, and seems like a radical, life-affirming statement.

“There is an unusual feeling to it,” Margaret says. “Thus far I’ve only done a couple of runs with that setup and we’ve been workshopping and trying to figure out how it works. I feel like the interesting part of it is that, because it’s done less often that way now, people are like, ‘What? It’s just you? That’s it? You’re just playing and there’s nothing else involved?’ But thankfully the novelty has worn off for me. Ok, that’s the setup, and now for me it’s the norm, but it can’t be what’s interesting about the show! I want the songs to be great and the playing to be great.

“And people feel, I think, a little more on the hook as an audience member. It’s very quiet. There’s nothing between me and the audience other than a microphone. And the fact that there’s no monitors also creates a different atmosphere. People can see my shoes, which is really funny! It’s interesting—I got a few comments from people who said that they remember older musicians’ shoes, because they weren’t using monitors. You remember Bob Dylan’s boots, because you could see his boots! So now I’m also conscious of my feet a little bit more! But everyone really feels like we’re in the room together, and there’s a little bit more of a communal quality, but also a little more risk, too. Whatever happens is happening, and there’s no buffer!” 

Find out more about Margaret Glaspy and purchase tickets for upcoming shows via her official website. Shop Gibson L-00 acoustic guitars and learn more about the 100-year history of Gibson flat-tops.