Shipped the Martin On Ahead
For those of you dropping by for the first time, Patrushka and the Pondering Pig (not the same as the Captain and Tenille) are planning and plotting their perilous peregrination from the awesome Atlantic to the wild Pacific shore, all in their little Japanese made gypsy cart, avoiding the interstates and sniffing the sunflowers. They'll be posting about what happens to them whenever they can find a wi-fi postbox...now let's listen in as the Pondering Pig says...
I shipped the Martin to California yesterday. Second day air. I was just too uncomfortable about leaving that part of me in the heat of the wagon and worrying about it at every cafe where we stop to eat the Blue Plate Special all the way across America.
It's not a shiny new polished Martin but a scratched up guitar I bought in the fall of 1969, just two months before Patrushka and I married. Bought it second hand from some Haight-Ashbury hippie wanting to go back home. A D-21, for you guitarplayers. Unusual, even then: guitar players always say, "A D-21!" Martin didn't make too many. They built this one in 1961, at the arch of the folk music era. Sitka spruce top, rosewood back and sides.
The back is scratched from my belt buckles. The sounding board is scratched from rocking out and from when I wore my Medic-Alert bracelet on my right hand like a fool. The fingerpick guard's about had it.
The neck needs to be reset one of these days - the action is a little higher than it used to be. I've replaced the tuning machines twice. The originals weren't very good and the one of the Schallers Rodney Albin put on in 1976 snapped. It just crumpled. Never seen anything like it.
I bought a new hardshell case for the Martin last year for safety, but I still have the original flaking and peeling plywood case smelling like must and closets and old memories.
I never gave my guitar a name like some people do. But it's been my friend and companion and extension of myself all these years. I made up sad fingerpicking melodies on it to comfort myself and forgot them the next day. And I rocked out in barrooms and pizza parlors for free beer. I played songs by Charlie Poole and Buddy Holly and James Taylor and the Pondering Pig. I don't want no other guitar. So I shipped it second day air even thought it cost me $180.00.
Labels: Across America, Music
posted by Christopher Newton at 6:45 AM
8 Comments:
I have one of those too, though it's not a Martin. I bought an Ovation, one of those turtle-back guitars in '72 when I was like 16. Paid $400 and another $100 for the case. I thought that was a lot, but the case saved it more than once. It now carries the Ovation's little brother, the sleeker, acoustic/electric cut-away model.
Anyways, the original has been dropped from truck beds, stolen, redeemed from theft, pawned, beer-stained, played until the frets are worn to nothing, dried out, scratched, cracked finish... It now can only be played open tuning with a slide. One always needs an axe for the blues and that one is it.
I'd ship it next-day mail too.
There are more guitars, too many for any one person. I figure one of the kids'll want to play. My oldest does, and when he moved last September, two went with him. An electric and my Black Japanese Martin (yeah, they made some cheaper models there for a while, still do, I think) He plays on the street in LaCrossse, Wi and makes some $$$.There are still 5 here, so when traveling gypsy caravans stop for the night, there's something for Django to play.
Sounds like a trusty old guitar that Lightin Hopkins would be pleased to try out. I'll never forget the first time I heard what an Ovation could do. Paul McCartney's 1976 Wings Over America tour. He filled the Cow Palace, San Francisco's drafty old barn used for Ringlng Brothers circuses and rodeos with the sound of one Ovation - totally acoustic...and no feedback. A new day had dawned.
Any other great old guitar stories out there?
Of course, I've got one more... Always one more. The day lags and I have more to add. If I get to saying too much, change the channel. I don't mind.
I have a 1935 Silvertone f-hole guitar that has a tone that will still rival any high-end guitar. The action is terrible, but the tone is exemplary. It's strictly a flat-pick accompany instrument, but it fills a room too. It's almost as old as my dad and it holds a room as well as he does. No, he still holds a room much better.
The Silvertone is a classic axe and deserves all the vacations it gets. But when it comes out, it proves itself over and over again. It's a Mississippi John Hurt kinda guitar. I guess it's easiest to relate guitars to players. maybe it means more then?
It retailed from Sears in '35 at $35.00. Probably no coincidence.
Like the Pig, I love to hear guitar stories. Someone's gotta have at least one.
I cruise these blogs sometimes three times a day looking for guitar stories and finally someone hits them. I like Leo's silvertone story but I love the Pig's Martin tale much more. I met the Albin Brothers once in around 1965, before they played with Janis, when I moved to California from Brooklyn. I never knew them well, but they seemed like some witty guys and talented too.
My guitar story is short and I don't have it any more. I envy you guys still having your axes. What happened was, I bought this Gibson Hummingbird in 1970. I loved that guitar almost as much as my wife. I took it with me to Watkins Glen in '73. Me and Rick Danko played in the parking lot on the second afternoon. Nobody knew he was Danko. They thought he was just another head. He was good and I struggled to keep up. He was high and I wasn't. We played Johnny B' Goode and a couple of Merle Haggard songs and some Cash tunes. He left and I fell asleep in Mickey's station wagon. When I got up later, the guitar was gone. I miss it to this day
This is the way rumours get started you know - Foghorn plays guitar with Rich Danko, he falls asleep (possibly a bottle of poisoned wine?) and when he wakes up - the Hummingbird is gone! I hate to think of the implications for the Band from Big Pink!
But no blame on Foghorn for not being able to keep up with one of the great bass players of his era - and no slouch on guitar either. Danko never went on to superstardom - he was a musician's musician.
BTW, I must also agree with Foggie's taste in guitars. The Gibson Hummingbird was (and assumedly is) the most delightful guitar ever to fall into my hands. That neck, so easy to play, so tight and clean and somehow perfect. That bright cutting yet still sweet tone. Unforgettable!
I played my share of Silvertones in my life too - ouch! I got blisters on my fingers! But you're right about those old archtops - they were created to be loud enough to cut right through an entire swing era band without amplification. And they did.
Don't have too much experience with the Alvarez, although I know they make some good instruments. They came out after I had stopped playing around a lot. What happened to the bridge? Did it start to pull up?
That's tough about your pal Tim. I miss my old friends a lot more than I miss my old guitars.
I didn't mean to intimate that Rick (Rest in Peace)stole my Gibson. No. He had this hollow electric Gretsch that I really liked though. I think it was this one kid from Missouri that was hanging around and telling me how cool it was and then when it was gone so was he.
I wouldn't have put it past Richard Manuel though. he was a funky guy and I never got along with him really well. He'd have hooked it just to spite me.
When I was first learning to play guitar as a 19 year old, my mother gave me her old guitar...I didn't even know she had one!! It's an old thing, TERRIBLE action, but a great thumpy sound that I can't get out of any other guitar. It's sitting unloved out in the garage right now...(hmmm...we are putting a little addition onto the mobile home.) Maybe it needs to be part music room so Lester can come back out of hiding. I learned to play on Lester, and once I got my hand on a guitar with lower action, I thought it was the easiest thing to play in the world. Lester taught me well!
FYI. I found a snapshot of Rick Danko singing with Hot Tuna acoustic about 25 years ago and I posted it on westernblues.blogspot.com for anyone interested.
Post a Comment
<< Home