A rare shot of Julian Lennon at Abbey Road with the Yamaha CJ-Dragon made for John Lennon. According to some sources, this guitar was Julian Lennon's favourite from his father's collection.

The story of the CJ-Dragon goes back to 1977 - John had played Paul Simon's famous black and white 'Central Park' acoustic and when he was on holiday in Japan with Yoko Ono that year, he requested a meeting with Yamaha to talk about building him a guitar. After trying several models, he settled on the same CJ-52 model as Paul's guitar but asked for a Dragon motif on the top using the traditional Japanese art of Maki-e. The request proved extremely difficult as the process required for Maki-e to be effective involves high humidity - very poor conditions for building fine acoustic guitars. After lengthy experimentation, Yamaha's luthiers determined that the only way to decorate the guitar to John's specification was to finish the entire guitar, including the inside, before applying the maki-e. The luthiers then embarked on a long trial and error process to find just how little finish could be applied in order to protect the wood from the humidity, but still allow it to resonate and vibrate enough to sound good.
Suffice to say, a balance was struck and the ex-Beatle was delighted with his finished guitar.

The CJ-Dragon was most recently on display at the John Lennon Museum in Tokyo.

Soren Andersen starts rehearsals this week for the upcoming Mike Tramp tour with his new main stage guitar, a custom reverse-headstock Pacifica 611HFM .
Soren will also be using his new Pacifica for the April / May 'Rock n Roll All-Stars' tour of South America with Glenn Hughes. The tour features members of Guns n Roses, Kiss and Def Leppard amongst many others...see link for details.

www.rnrallstars.com
www.sorenandersen.net

British blues guitarist and singer-songwriter Chris Rea, probably best know for his hits 'The Road To Hell' and 'Driving Home For Christmas' was featured in the UK's Mail on Saturday on April 21st 2012 in an article talking about 6 of his favourite and most inspiring things and places - and at number three is his Yamaha NTX1200.
Chris's latest project, Santo Spirito, is a 3CD, 3DVD box set featuring 2 films directed by Chris, the soundtrack to each film and the album 'Santo Spirito Blues'. Chris drew inspiration from traditional Spanish Gypsy music for much of the project and his NTX1200 features extensively in both the recordings and live shows on the Santo Spirito Tour.
Chris's comment in the article is "It’s terrific because you don’t have to tune it. I used it a great deal on my latest album, Santo Spirito." - where he's referring to the intonation being much more consistent than on a traditional classical guitar and therefore much more usable when playing high up the neck, something which turned him onto the NX guitars as soon as he played them.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2132005/Chris-Rea-Musician-asp...

The Mail on Saturday - Chris Rea article

Santo Spirito is a long way from a traditional album, and the natural succession to the elaborate 11CD, 1DVD 'Blue Guitars Project' which he was forced to fund himself as the record companies considered it 'pure, incomprehensible madness' (The Blue Guitars project went on to gross €5million at retail), Chris explained his thinking in making a project rather than a record to BBC News “ I cannot be bothered just making a CD any more. It has got to be something more interesting for me than just 10 tracks on CD. The luxury of selling over 30 million albums has allowed me to try new and different approaches to music. I would be damning myself to hell if I just took the money and ran. One day a younger artist may look at what I have been trying to do, marrying my love of the visual arts and music and start a whole new movement. Then, I will know it was all worthwhile!”

With a career spanning over thirty years and the albums The Road To Hell (1989) and Auberge (1991) both debuting at No.1 in the UK, cementing his position as arguably one of the country’s finest musicians and songwriters.

www.chrisrea.com

April 2012 saw Steve Lukather's 'All's Well That Ends Well' tour hit Japan, including two shows at Akasaka Blitz in Tokyo. When Steve toured with Toto last year, he chose the ART-equipped NTX1200, but for this tour his acoustic of choice was his LJX26CP, complete with the SRT pickup system.
Steve explained how he was getting on with the Yamaha's on the tour:

"I'm so happy with my new Yamaha acoustic guitars - the sound, the feel and the look. When I first started playing them I A/B'd them with all of the competition and there was no comparison - the Yamaha won hands down, both live and in the studio. On this tour I'm using the SRT pickup system - cutting through the band is really important for me so I'm using mostly the pickup signal, with just a little of the mic modelling blended in. The guitars are great - I'm honoured to be part of the Yamaha family!"

Steve's SRT settings from the show:

www.stevelukather.net