One night, back when I owned a nightclub, I had a young guy play guitar and sing on Monday nights. He was pretty good, but his guitar wasn't very good-an old acoustic with a pickup. The strings were pretty high as the neck was beginning to warp.
One night James Burton came in, and the only guitar around was-you guessed it, the old acoustic with warped neck. Well, you wouldn't believe how he made that old guitar sound. And he ever complained about it, as I had warned him ahead of time about how bad it was. When he finished, though, he said it was the first time in 35 years that he had sore fingers!
Of course after that I always kept a top-of-the-line Yamaha electric for James to play when he came in. He was the only person who ever played it until I got out of the club business. He DID sound even better on it of course.
DonM