The Justin Townes Earle Signature Guitar from Recording King

Recording King developed the Justin Townes Earle Signature model in direct collaboration with Justin before his passing in 2020. Lovers of his percussive style will be able to recognize his dry, woody tone from the first strum.

“We’d been working on this project with Justin since about 2012,” says Artist Relations Director Ashley Atz, “He’s such a great songwriter, I think sometimes his guitar playing didn’t get enough attention, but he was a killer guitar player. He could play bass, rhythm and lead on just one instrument, so he needed a guitar that was really dry sounding with really short decay, to make room for the upper register lead-style stuff that he was playing.”

The classic small-body tone of the JTE Signature starts with the solid Sitka spruce top. RK’s exclusive CrossLap bracing gives it extra tight bracing tolerances, allowing the top to resonate more freely for outsize projection.

JTE loved the early RK Dirty 30s guitars, and specifically requested the traditional floating bridge and gold tailpiece for his signature model. To reflect his style and attention to detail, Justin outfitted his signature model with gold hardware (tailpiece and tuners), tortoise body binding and tuner buttons.