Well, we are getting close to the end of my saga. Thanks for sticking with me and thank you for your feedback. I had no idea there were so many guitar heads out there.
Again another story attaches to this old relic. It is a Maton CW80/12, made in 1970. In fact, it is the 12 string version of my six string and even matches it for date of manufacture, colour and trim. But its condition and provenance are worlds apart. This instrument has been sitting in the corner of The Fourth, that TARDIS-like garage of my mate, Dave Quinn, he of the Shadowfax restoration fame. On my first visit to Canberra to see Dave and to discuss the early stages of the restoration, I noticed the guitar leaning, dusty and unloved, with no strings, against one of the shelves. I enquired about it and Dave said that it belonged to a mate in Queensland and had been in his possession for years. I picked it up and looked more closely and I could see that it had had a very hard life, as the pictures above indicate. I said, in passing, that, if ever his mate wanted to sell it, I’d be happy to make him an offer. Dave said he’d pass it on.
Numerous visits to Canberra over the next few months saw the Shadowfax inching closer to completion and its planned debut at the Sheene in 2012. On one such visit, Dave remarked that he had spoken to his mate and that he didn’t want to sell. Fair enough, but it was worth an ask. It must have been just before the resto actually finished when, in one of our multitude of telephone conversations, Dave said to me, “Oh, by the way, I’ve spoken to old mate in Queensland again and he said that, if you want the guitar, you can have it!” I was stunned and made sure that he actually meant that he was giving it away. Yes, that is exactly what he meant. Wow. A 12 string to match my six string.
A clean-up at Haworths excellent music shop in Albion Park and a new set of strings and it came back sounding sensational. I insisted that no attempt be made to repair or make better any of the damage and deterioration of the wood, just clean, refurbish the fretboard and frets and adjust the neck if necessary. The thing that stunned me about it when I first went to play it is that the neck is exactly the same thickness as the neck on my six string. Normally the neck of a 12 string is wider to accommodate the double amount of strings, but Maton managed to fit 12 strings in the space normally occupied by 6. With my “patented” bridge modification, it is as easy to play as a six string and I can exercise my Keith Potger admiration to my heart’s content. Even songs that use a fair few bar chords are easy to play on this guitar and, best of all, I have a pigeon pair of CW80’s.
This is my “accidental” guitar. You see, I went to the second hand shop up the street from me to see if I could buy a buffing machine with which to polish my car. My right arm has never fully recovered from the accident and any sort of repetitive action with it leads to pain and discomfort for days afterwards, so a buffing machine seemed like the plan. As an aside and an example of how things just sometimes “work” The Best Son-In-Law in the World left me his buffing machine when the family moved to the USA last year. Anyway, the store didn’t have one but it always has guitars and I always have a quick look. They are mostly rubbish, but this dreadnought caught my eye. Nice colour and in extra good condition. I looked at the headstock for the brand and almost put it back on the rack when I stopped and thought for a moment. I dimly remembered that name from a YouTube video that my son had made me watch. I remembered that they were made in Canada and almost exclusively out of Canadian cedar. I looked inside and, sure enough, the label confirmed it.
It was priced at $290, way cheaper than its real value. After a bit of haggling and trying not to look too excited, I took it home for $260. Not much of a discount, but, truth be known, even if he had refused to discount it at all, I still would have bought it. It is a lovely instrument with a beautiful tone and has the advantage that it has built-in pickups so that it can be plugged into an amplifier. Having previously mentioned my lack of interest in electric guitars, this last statement may sound strange, but things change and (thankfully) so do people.
In the last couple of years I have struck up a friendship (originally through Facebook and now personally) with a fellow motorcyclist who lives locally and is also a musician. In fact, he is more than that because he is a teacher of music, guitar and other stringed instruments and has been running his own teaching business for over 30 years. Elwyn invited me to join a group of his friends who regularly entertain senior citizens in the nursing homes around Wollongong and it has been heaps of fun doing that. Without going into all the gory details, this has led to he and another friend of his and myself forming a folk music group and singing at some folk music venues around town. We call ourselves “360” (I thought of the name) because we are three blokes, all over 60 years old and we cover a wide panorama of music styles from the 60’s and around about there. Clever, huh?
We have had a gig at the local Folk Club and, a couple of weeks ago, we performed to a large and appreciative audience at the 30th Annual Illawarra Folk Festival at Bulli. And, performing at larger venues has meant that any of my acoustic guitars that would be suitable for the purpose, would struggle for penetration, especially since both Elwyn and Henry use amplified acoustic guitars all the time. So having the ability to plug into an amp for these performances has been a real, and unexpected bonus of buying this instrument. Serendipity at work yet again.
Norman? Never heard of them. So, why did I buy this guitar? Well, actually, I didn’t. Let me explain. My good friend (my BEST friend) Dave Thompson, did a year’s exchange teaching in a school in London a few years ago, just before he retired to a life on the road in his Winnebago. While there he met a young Canadian teacher who was doing the same thing as part of a trip around the world. Dave invited her to visit he and Sue when she came to Australia, which she did and enjoyed it thoroughly. And she brought with her this Norman folk guitar. The classic rounded body is the give-away plus the smaller proportions as well.
However, after touring around Australia and collecting a case full of souvenirs, she found that she didn’t have room to take the guitar with her back to Canada. So, she asked Dave if he would store it for her until she returned on a later visit that she had planned. No problem, he was happy to do that. But, situations change, as I mentioned above. Not long after this, Dave’s partner, Sue, experienced a sharp deterioration in her health due to the increasing effects of the Parkinson’s Disease from which she has suffered for some years. This resulted in them having to sell their lovely house that was set on a steeply sloping block of land and move into a more manageable unit in town, close to the doctor, the hospital and other facilities. And, being that it was dramatically smaller than their house, the problem of where to store the guitar was only one of the many issues that they had to solve.
So when Dave asked me if I could find a home for it temporarily, I agreed. After all, we have the room. So it got tucked under the bed in the guest room and has lived there ever since, unopened and unplayed. Over the last few years I have often asked Dave if he has heard from the owner and the answer has always been, yes, he has and yes, she plans on coming back to Australia to visit and will take it back to Canada when she does.
Last Christmas I again asked Dave if he had heard from her and he said, “Well, yes, I have. She doesn’t see herself getting back here anytime soon so she said I can do whatever I want with the guitar.” “Do you want me to dig it out so you can take it home?” “No, I have decided that what I want to do with the guitar is to give it to you.”
BOOM! Just like that, he had decided that, since I played and he didn’t, it was better off with me than with him. So, a new set of bronze bound light gauge strings later and I have a wonderful, hand made, limited edition Canadian folk guitar! It plays and sounds delightful and proved its worth at the above Folk Festival gig, It also had built-in pickups so I was able to plug it in to the existing sound system at the venue and it sounded just great. I am forever grateful how these wonderful instruments have come my way.
And, finally, a pink guitar. A PINK guitar?? An ASHTON pink guitar no less. What was I thinking? Settle down, all is well. This guitar belonged to my daughter and she used it in some of her shows. But, when the time came for her and the family to move to the USA, there simply wasn’t room for it. Numerous attempts at selling it on ebay and Gumtree were unsuccessful (bet you’re surprised about THAT) and, in the final flurry of packing and fitting everything in, it ended up at my place. She doesn’t know, but the plan is for me to look after it till she comes back and I’ll give it back to her. So, no, you won’t see me playing this at any gigs anytime soon. 🙂
Thus are the stories of my guitars. I love each and every one of them and I love the stories that go with them. Should any disaster ever befall us, it will be a case of “Save the guitars.”
Rock (or folk) on.