Do you have the HDS Sessions - it's officailly titled: Norman Blake/Tut Taylor/Sam Bush/Butch Robins/Vassar Clements/David Holland/Jethro Burns - recording? It's freakin' magical and totally obliterates genre boundaries.
People jabber on all the time here about "tone." Well, it's these guys. Unamplified.
I would be the last to detract from the "tone is in the fingers" tip in the case of these pickers, but who (besides Tony) has Clarence White's 1934 (first year for Mrtn dreadnaught w/ 14 fret neck) D-28? What do you figure it would go for today on the open market? Prbly a lot more than the collective value of all the gear owned by all who have posted on this thread? Norman has always been a most serious gtr-hound and must have billions of $$$ worth of stringed inst! No shortage of the highest-order of pickin' cred, but yow, what gear!!