[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6IB0trJoJU[/youtube]
A good friend on Facebook posted up this YouTube video today. I confess to being somewhat of a Willie Nelson fan having listened to his music for many years. I even attended a concert of his in Canberra about 15 years ago. Sadly, he was not at his best that night and, after hearing him butcher one Kris Kristofferson song too many, I left in disgust. I did not know, at the time, the story of his guitar that he played that night and did not know it until today. And a fascinating story it is.
Thinking about this video during the day today brought back to my memory a conversation that I had had recently with friends about all of my guitars. The point of the conversation was that, while my guitars could probably be sold to replenish the family finances somewhat, I would find it impossible to do so since each and every one of them comes with a story. As Trisha Yearwood said at the concert I attended a number of years ago, “So many guitars, so little time.”
As a guitar owner, my collection is small, but, since this is likely to be a long read tonight, perhaps you should grab a coffee and sit back while I tell you the stories that go with each of them. To begin with I should explain that I began playing guitar in 1969, in my first year at Teachers College. All music students were required to learn the recorder, an old and wonderful instrument that sounds delightful when played well and appalling when it is not. Since I reasoned that it was an entirely unsuitable instrument for use in the classroom, I chose to teach myself guitar instead. Suffice it to say that it was an inspired choice and I have used a guitar almost every day in every classroom in which I have taught for over 40 years. Indeed, the stories I could tell about music in the classroom and how my guitars have been interwoven into them would make a mini-book all by themselves.
I am delighted to say that nearly all of the guitars that I have owned are still in my possession (apart from that Gretch jazz guitar that I sold in a moment of complete poverty). A few electric guitars have come and gone without me shedding a tear as I have always been, and will remain, an acoustic man.
It began, as I said, in 1969. I bought a new Yamaha folk guitar with steel strings. I do not have a photo of this guitar though I know exactly where it is. Its sale to my brother helped fund my second purchase and it now lives on the top of the wardrobe in his study. Learning to play on a steel string guitar was a trial and even the old wheeze of rubbing methylated spirits into the tips of the fingers to hasten the callousing didn’t really help that much. A friend suggested replacing the steel strings with nylon ones which I did and it became far easier. I do believe that it now has steel strings back on it. Hours of practice plus my keen ear for a tune meant that I progressed quickly from strumming along to tunes in a book to working out the chords for hundreds of other songs and playing them.
My next purchase was a biggie and it caused quite a furore in the household. I was still single and living at home on a teachers college scholarship but I dipped into my savings and bought a much better guitar. It was 1970 and the choice came down to a Maton (a brand about which I knew nothing except that it was made in Melbourne) and a Gibson (which I knew a little better). I chose a dreadnought style guitar that reflected my growing interest in country music and the eventual choice was made purely on the basis of quality. The Maton was $150 and the Gibson was $495 but the Maton was far better finished and had far more of a quality “feel” to it so the local product got the nod. My mother was furious that I could spend such a huge amount of money on a guitar when my income was so low, though I always suspected that she was more peeved about the fact that, had she known I had some savings, she would have had me pay more board!
The guitar has been in my possession now for 44 years and that will be 45 in March this year. It is a CW80/S, a model that is still in Maton’s catalogue nearly 50 years on. It now retails for nearly $2000 so it was a good investment. In 2000 I shouted it a trip back to the factory for its 30th birthday. It was cleaned, polished and had the neck adjusted. It came back with a clean bill of health and a note from the Maton technician saying that, should I continue to take as good a care of it as I obviously had done up till then, then there was no reason for it not to outlast me and still be in tip-top shape.
You probably know that wood instruments sound better the older they get as long as they are kept in a dry environment. Mine now sounds quite wonderful and it is always a joy to play it. The “timbre” of the sound is now rich and mellow and, with a brand new set of strings, it is hard to imagine that it is nearly 50 years old.
If you are a guitar owner, you will already be familiar with the mathematical formula that determines how many guitars you should have. It is n+1 =? where n represents the number of guitars that you presently own. A young friend in the folk group in which I played had bought a Maton 12 string guitar and I coveted it earnestly. It was the time of The Seekers and Keith’s Potger’s Maton 12 string brought this type of guitar into prominence and popularity. The ringing acoustics of a well-played 12 string almost sounded like an orchestra all by itself. I resolved that, one day, I would own one too.
That didn’t happen until nearly 10 years later when a friend at the church I was attending made it known that he was heading O/S and that his 12 string guitar was for sale. A Washburn, from the USA, it had a known name and I knew that it had been rarely played since being purchased some years before. And so it joined my collection.
I enjoyed the ringing sound and performed my standard surgery on this guitar to lower the action as I have used on most of my guitars. It was easy to play and was a valued part of my collection. It even had its five minutes of fame when it was played by Australian singer/songwriter, Kevin Johnson (“Rock and roll I gave you all the best years of my life”) when he visited our school and spent an hour or so talking to my class about music. A small plaque on the back of the body tells the story; it was October 1980.
When we moved to Sydney at the beginning of 82 things were very tough financially and it was at this time that I sold the Gretch (which I had bought from a second hand shop in Port Kembla for $25) and the Washburn. A young fellow in the church needed a guitar and I desperately needed the money. He parted with $200 and took away the guitar, with the caveat that, should he ever wish to sell it, he would give me first bite at the cherry.
Fast forward to the late 1990’s and I received an unexpected call. After identifying himself and exchanging pleasantries the same young man asked, “Hey, Phil, you know that guitar that you sold me?” It seemed that he was keen to buy a car and had remembered the deal we had made some years before. “Would you like to buy it back?” Is the Pope a Catholic? Does Dolly Parton have trouble seeing her belly button? I quickly said I was and asked, “How much do you want for it?” “Oh, just what I paid for it will do.” I was staggered and a quick trip up to Sydney and exchange of another $200 and it was mine again. It appeared to have been rarely played and was in as good a condition as it was when I had sold it all those years before. A new set of strings had it sounding its best and, needless to say, it will NOT be sold again.
There is much more to the story of my guitars but that will do for now. More later. Go, Troy Bayliss at PI this weekend.