My chosen axe is a twelve string Takamine from the mid 70's vintage. The artist who always made me feel worthless as a player was Leo Kottke. I saw him 3 times over the years. His rendition of 8 miles high is done with 6 of the strings in standard tuning and the octave pairs were in open tuning. Incredible! Nothing like him on stage if you like 12 string guitar.