Stephen Stills Guitars & Gear: Pre-War Martins, Gretsches, Strats and the Documented Rig
Stephen Stills playing a Stratocaster with The Rides, June 2016. Photo: Davidwbaker, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Stephen Stills is a hard player to pin down on paper. He has pre-war Martin acoustics on one side, Gretsch and Fender electrics on the other, and a rig list that changes depending on which source you read. This guide sticks to what published sources actually say about his instruments: a 2013 Premier Guitar interview with a gear sidebar, a 2014 Premier Guitar history of the Martin D-45, Martin’s own writing on the model, a 2012 Gretsch blog post built on a MusicRadar interview, a 2019 Acoustic Guitar piece on Woodstock, a 1998 Vintage Guitar interview as reproduced on a fan site, and a 2016 Gibson interview with Waddy Wachtel. Where those sources disagree, or only one of them speaks, we say so.
Some things people expect to see on a Stills rig list are missing here on purpose. We found no source we could open that documents a Telecaster or a Matchless amp in his hands, so neither appears below.
Where the Martin Fits
The acoustic is the centre of the Stills story, and the model most tied to him is the Martin D-45. Premier Guitar’s 2014 history of the guitar, written by Peter Goldenthal, says the D-45 was introduced in 1933, that the first one was ordered by Gene Autry, and that 1942 was the last year before the model came back in 1968. In that article, Kim Walker says the collector boom for pre-war D-45s stems from folk-rock musicians, in particular Stills and Young. George Gruhn says Stills and Young playing D-45s onstage, with Stills on a vintage pre-war one and Young on a 1960s model, had a great deal to do with the model’s popularity. The same article lists Stills among the artists with D-45 signature models, alongside Gene Autry and Mike Longworth, and gives no dates or specifications for his.
Martin’s own blog agrees on the broad picture. A July 2025 post on the pre-war D-45 says some owners, Stills among them, have owned more than one, and that the members of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young liked the guitars enough that each bought a D-45 when the model returned to the catalogue in the late 1960s.
Which Martin he held at which moment is less certain. In a 2019 Acoustic Guitar feature cataloguing the instruments at Woodstock, Blair Jackson writes that Stills might have played two guitars there, a pre-war D-28 and a D-45. Jackson ties the D-45 to Stills’s own account to MusicRadar, in which Stills says he bought it when the Buffalo Springfield first made money. We could not open the MusicRadar interview itself, so we relay that through Jackson. Forum posts date the purchase differently, but we treat those as unsourced and leave them out. For the broader D-28 story, see our Martin D-28 guide, and for another player who owns pre-war Martins, our Marty Stuart guide.
The Rig
The most complete single list we could verify is the sidebar to Corbin Reiff’s August 2013 Premier Guitar feature on The Rides, the trio of Stills, Barry Goldberg and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. It is a snapshot of what Stills was bringing to that project, not a career inventory, and it is the source for most of the dated items below.
Guitars
The sidebar lists “pre-war Martin acoustics” without naming models. Stills’ D-45 and D-28 are covered above, with the caveats about which guitar was where.
Premier Guitar lists two 1954 Stratocasters in Stills’s gear for the 2013 Rides project. Our Fender Stratocaster guide gives 1954 as the launch year of the model, so these are very early examples if the listing is accurate. The sidebar gives no serial numbers or condition notes.
The same sidebar lists a 1958 White Falcon. Stills’s own account, in a 2012 MusicRadar interview reproduced on the Gretsch blog, adds a story. He says he found a stereo White Falcon and traded with Neil Young for Young’s older one, which he still has, and that when he offered it back Young said a trade is a trade. We cannot tell from the sources which of the two guitars the sidebar means, so we do not assign a model year to the traded guitar. Our White Falcon guide covers the model, and our Bigsby vibrato guide explains the tailpiece these guitars carry.
The gear list has a single entry, spelled “Country Gentlemen”. In the Gretsch blog excerpt, Stills says he owns two old brown single-cutaway Country Gentlemens, and that he liked the orange ones but likes the brown ones, actually. He also dates his interest in the brand to a 1959 Chet Atkins demonstration at a music shop in Tampa, and says Gretsches are good for fingerpicking, particularly with the pickguard taken off. For the Chet Atkins line, see our Gretsch G6120 Chet Atkins guide.
Listed in the Premier Guitar sidebar, with no further detail. Our Gibson Flying V guide covers the design.
In a March 1998 Vintage Guitar interview, as reproduced on a fan site (we could not check it against the magazine), Stills says he used a Firebird III and a single-pickup Firebird I in the Manassas years and that, as of 1998, he still had both. See the Gibson Firebird guide for background on the line.
In the same fan-site reproduction, Stills describes a black Gibson that was one of the first with humbuckers, says he later ran across a Super 400, and says many good guitars were used on the early Buffalo Springfield records. It does not give models or years, so we leave them as that.
Asked about the twangy, Duane Eddy-style tones on the Buffalo Springfield records “Rock and Roll Woman” and “Mr. Soul”, Stills says in the same fan-site reproduction that he owned a Guild Duane Eddy. The link is the interviewer’s question, and we have no second source for which guitar was on which track.
The one Les Paul with a clear paper trail is a guitar Stills no longer has. In a Gibson interview published in March 2016 (interviewer Michael Leonard), the session guitarist Waddy Wachtel says he bought his original Les Paul from Stills in 1968, just after moving to Los Angeles; the interviewer’s question and Gibson’s caption call it a 1960 model. He recalls a room filled with guitars, many of them Les Pauls belonging mostly to Stills, and being told to take his pick when he asked about buying one. He gives the price as $350, adding “I think”. Gibson later built a replica, the Collector’s Choice #14 “Waddy Wachtel”, and Guitar Player has run a feature on the story. That is Wachtel’s recollection of a 1968 sale, not a Stills interview, and we present it that way. Our Gibson Les Paul Standard guide covers the model itself.
Amps
In the Premier Guitar interview, Stills says he plays a combination of tweed Fender amps, a Bassman, a Deluxe and a Twin. The sidebar spells the third one “Fender Tweed Twin Reverb”, which does not quite match the running text, and we cannot resolve the exact model from the article. For how the later Deluxe Reverb and Twin Reverb differ in general, see our Twin, Deluxe and Princeton comparison.
Also in that interview, Stills says he was breaking out an old Marshall 100-watt head for the tour. He says he and Jimi Hendrix each picked out about five of them, that he has three left, and that he thinks two went missing over the years thanks to various roadies. It is an anecdote in his words, and we have no second source for the count.
Effects
In the Vintage Guitar interview as reproduced on a fan site, Stills says the band ran guitars through old Fairchild and UA limiters to make them sustain, and jokingly calls it a perverse, unnatural and immoral use of a limiter. He also says the intro to “Rock and Roll Woman” was a Gretsch acoustic run through the board with a limiter and overdubbed on itself. No pedalboard is documented in anything we could open, so we do not list one.
From Gretsch to Strat: How the Electric Side Moved
The Gretsch side of Stills’s electric playing is tied in his own telling to Neil Young. In the 2012 interview, Stills says he got his first Gretsch in the Springfield and that Young played one, which immediately attracted him to Young. The fan-site reproduction of the 1998 Vintage Guitar interview has a related passage: Young’s fondness for Gretsches rubbed off, and the original Springfield sound was mostly Gretsch guitars. We say more about Young’s side in our Neil Young guide.
Stills’s own version of how he came to own a White Falcon is the trade described above, and we follow his account for his own gear.
The gear list from 2013 then shows an electric player who has moved well past that start. The Premier Guitar sidebar puts two 1954 Stratocasters next to the Gretsches, and the amps are tweed Fenders plus an old Marshall. For readers working out what separates these guitars in practice, our solid-body comparison sets the Stratocaster against the Les Paul and others.
Tunings as a Gear Question
Stills is closely associated with open and altered tunings on acoustic guitar, and in gear terms the tuning decides which guitar and which strings make sense. Flame Tree Publishing’s profile of Stills, drawn from its Rock Guitar Heroes book, says that the CSNY acoustic sound is identified with D5 (D-A-D-D-A-D) and Drop D tunings, and describes “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” as having an E-E-E-E-B-E tuning. The page does not name an author or a date, and we found no second source we could read, so we treat the tuning as unconfirmed.
Guitar World runs a 2015 lesson titled “The Deft Fingerpicking and Odd-Tuning Riffage of Stephen Stills”, but we could not open its body, so we do not rely on it for any tuning. If the Flame Tree layout is right, four lower strings in unisons and octaves would carry a drone, with the top two strings in their usual positions. That is our own reading, not a statement from Stills.
For another player built around an altered tuning, see our Curtis Mayfield guide, which covers his open F# tuning.
What the Sources Do Not Settle
Several points that often appear in Stills gear lists did not hold up when we looked for a source we could read in full.
- The year and exact model of the D-45 he bought first rest on his own account, as relayed by Acoustic Guitar.
- Which Martin he played on the Woodstock stage is a hedged “might have” in Acoustic Guitar.
- The model year of the White Falcon he keeps, given the trade with Young, is not in the sources.
- A Les Paul in his hands in the Manassas period appears in forum posts, not in anything we could open, so we leave it out.
- Details of the Martin signature editions are limited to Premier Guitar’s mention that they exist.
Frequently Asked Questions
What acoustic guitar is Stephen Stills best known for?
The Martin D-45. Two experts quoted in Premier Guitar’s D-45 history link him and Neil Young to the pre-war D-45’s collector boom, and Martin says he has owned more than one pre-war example.
Does Stephen Stills play Gretsch guitars?
Yes. In a 2012 interview carried by Gretsch, he says he got his first Gretsch in Buffalo Springfield, owns two older brown Country Gentlemen and made a White Falcon trade with Neil Young. Premier Guitar’s 2013 sidebar lists a 1958 White Falcon and a 1959 Chet Atkins Country Gentleman.
What amps does Stephen Stills use?
For the 2013 Rides project, Premier Guitar lists tweed Fender amps, a Bassman, a Deluxe and a Twin, plus an old Marshall 100-watt head. That is one tour’s list, not a career summary.
Did Stephen Stills own a Les Paul?
According to Waddy Wachtel in a 2016 Gibson interview, Stills sold him a 1960 Les Paul in 1968. The 2013 Premier Guitar sidebar does not list one.
Image credits
- Jimi Hendrix's 1970 Stratocaster, given to Stephen Stills: Zurich_99, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
- Stephen Stills: SolarScott, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.
- Top image: Stephen Stills playing a Stratocaster with The Rides, June 2016, Davidwbaker, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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