Amazing Grace - Lincoln Hensley, Aynsley Porchak, and Professor Dan

TONE TUESDAY: “Amazing Grace” featuring Sonny Osborne’s Guitjo

When Sonny was 14 years old, he and L.E. White borrowed Bill Monroe’s car and were riding through the countryside of South Carolina late one night when they heard a family out on their porch singing this song. They pulled over, rolled down the windows, and listened for about 15-20 minutes. What he heard that night inspired this arrangement. All these years later and he has never forgotten those unique sounds.

This instrument was made by Greg Rich, originally, for Larry McNeely to play on the Glen Campbell show. It is a copy of a Selmer-Maccaferri classical guitar. Greg is a genius in instrument building and design, especially those made originally in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Larry moved back to Nashville and put it on consignment at Gruhn Guitars.
Sonny was on his way out of town and stopped by Gruhn’s store to drop off an instrument when George insisted on showing him the Guitjo. He told George to hold it for him until he got back in town, and when he returned, he paid George for it. It was originally blonde finish when Sonny purchased it, but it has gone through many facelifts since then, culminating in the present pearloid fingerboard and sunburst finish. It has been in this configuration for about 30 years.

This instrument has been out of the public eye since November 23rd, 2003. This was Sonny’s last show playing an instrument on stage, and he played Amazing Grace on it that night, so we thought it would be fitting to play that as its first song out of retirement.

These are still the same strings that Sonny played on that night.