We call it "golden tone" and it is what emits from one of those very special guitars that rarely come into the 'Elkcave. When they do, we take note of that day and enjoy it to it's fullest. This Clarence White is such a guitar and Lee was wringing his hands as I prepared to restring and clean it for it's photography session. As the big guy paced over in the corner, he kept throwing glances my way. I knew the suspense was killing him- he has a certain fondness for Brazilian acoustics and I knew that he knew that I knew that he wanted to play this thing...badly, so I took my sweet time wiping the guitar down with some polish and getting rid of any fingerprints that were on it. I had just cut the original strings off of the guitar, as it has sat in a music store for the last 11 years, unsold. Man, I could feel the heat of Lee's looks on the back of my neck, but I methodically worked on the guitar while humming my favorite Osmonds tune, "Crazy Horses" over and over. He's shuffling and moving boxes around by this time and I finally meander over to the string cabinet. There were boxes of strings in there, but I couldn't help loudly announcing that we had no acoustic bronze's left. It was quiet for a second before I heard the stream of profanity head my way. "Scracklin snarl frig fraggin', woggle dum scram blarney snite woggle dum", he grumbled. I'm seriously trying not to laugh out loud and so I asked him without turning around, "You just want me to pop a set of electrics on it?" That did it- he covered 15 feet in two steps and pushed me out of the way. "Lemme in there" he hollered and as he spied the six boxes of acoustic strings in front of his eyes he simultaneously reached out with his left paw and caught my collar (I was making a serious break for the door). "You are not a very funny Cub today" he cracked. "I've been waitin' to see what that thing sounded like and now you've got my dandruff up". I was still trying not to laugh, but he still had my collar, so I played guilty and repentant and headed back to the bench. I strung this D-28 up, stretched the strings out a bit and handed him the guitar. He was still peeved, so I eased down to what was the safest place at that time, my office. A minute later, I heard Lee do what he had been waiting to do since we bought this guitar at the Charlotte Guitar show- play it. Yes, it has "golden tone" and yes, it sounds better than the other Clarence White we have on our website because I made him A/B both guitars. One is awesome and the other is even more awesome so I must now assume that there is indeed some special kind of magic in this rare wood. What Lee doesn't know is that I was secretly filming a commercial for Jack Link's "Messin' With the Sasquatch" and should have a nice, fat royalty check coming in any day now. I think I'll have a life-sized cardboard cutout of the 'ol Sasquatch made and put it next to Lee's desk. That way, he can keep himself company as he enjoys yet another exceptional guitar, courtesy of the 'Elk...