![How Stephen Wilson Jr. Discovered His Lifelong Guitar]](https://backingtracksfullcollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/How-Stephen-Wilson-Jr-Discovered-His-Lifelong-Guitar-758x426.jpg "How Stephen Wilson Jr. Discovered His Lifelong Guitar] 1")
We all love a good Craigslist find – whether it’s Este Haim buying her dream ’70s Precision Bass for a bargain, or Lzzy Hale adopting her now go-to shape, the Explorer, thanks to the humble online marketplace.
Nashville-by-way-of-Indiana country star Stephen Wilson Jr. also took to Craigslist to find his now-workhorse nylon string – a rare Takamine C136S.
“I bought this on Craigslist [at] a parking lot in Nashville. Some random guy met me in this weird van,” the country and rock star tells Tiny House Concerts.
“He had an amp that he plugged into a cigarette lighter,” he continues. “The big thing is, I play these [acoustic guitars] through an amp. It needed to sound good. At the time, I didn’t have any money to put a pickup in it, and I wanted to start playing it through amps.
“So I was like, ‘Can you bring an amp?’ And he brought one, and it sounded incredible.
“In the first second, I knew it was like my forever guitar,” Wilson asserts.
And while he wasn’t shopping for this specific model, he claims that, as soon as he saw it, it was pretty much love at first sight: “It was in my price range, and it just showed up, and ever since then, I’ve yet to put it down.”
Explaining his affinity for nylon-string guitars, Wilson says it’s partly because that’s what he started playing as a kid. “I got super into – and I still am super into – Al Di Meola and Paco de Lucía and Willie Nelson.
“All the classical guitar players taught me more about guitar playing, really, than any rock ’n’ roll guitar player did, because they made the guitar a drum,” he says matter-of-factly.
“They made it more than just something that sustains a note. It became something very percussive. So when I realized it was also a percussion instrument, it changed everything.”
Speaking of flamenco guitar legend Paco de Lucía, after spending 60 years stored in a meat can, the virtuoso’s lost recordings were finally unearthed and officially released in 2024.
