Guitar Gear

Today, Jack Johnson put on a live streaming event called the Kokua Festival 2020. This is an annual event to help raise money for various schools and to fund various programs in and around Hawaii. Usually, it’s a concert festival with lots of different acts, but because of the lock-down, he live-streamed the event and had other artists such as Willie Nelson and Eddie Vedder live-stream from their homes.

Now imagine my surprise to see Jack playing a J-45! That body profile is unmistakable and, of course, there’s no mistaking the Gibson head stock. And when he played, that round bottom-end and tight mid-range that’re characteristic of the J-45 sealed the deal.

That said, I could be wrong. But there’s no way that it’s a Hummingbird because that guitar has square shoulders, while the J-45 has rounded shoulders and much narrower at the shoulder as well. And no way that it’s an L-00 – it’s way too big for that.

It actually surprised me to see him playing a Gibson because I knew he played Cole Clark guitars from Australia. But hey! It’s always cool to see a big-name artist playing the same gear as you!

Now, what I don’t know at all is if it’s a J-45 Standard or J-45 Standard Walnut. I’m kind of thinking it might be the Standard Walnut because Jack is really big into sustainability and he cares a lot for the environment. Proceeds from the Kokua festival go to a variety of environmental concerns. Even his Cole Clark guitars are all made from sustainable Australian woods. Again, I could be wrong and I’m definitely interpolating here, but it makes sense.