Through the years spanning 1959 to 2012, fifty
three years of music life, one or another of my old guitars has lent
itself to the precious hands of so many of my heroes as we would visit
backstage in dreary, dirty, drafty
dressing rooms, during our road tours. Red Foley, Ernest Tubb, Little
Jimmy Dickens or George Jones would say, “Stan, let me see your old
guitar a minute”, and would gently cradle it to their bodies as their
hands would pick out a song that was on their minds at the time. Maybe
it was a new song they had just written, like with Mickey Newbury, Roger
Miller, Wayne Carson, Red Lane or Lefty Frizzell, and the old guitar
just soaked up the creative energy from those fingers like water to a
thirsty throat of a hot hay field worker. Those precious finger
imprints are still on the fret board, I can almost feel them. Or like
the time at the early tv station in the sixties, when Merle Travis
picked up my old guitar and did “Nine Pound Hammer” as only that master
picker could do, or Cal Smith played it back in the dressing room on one
of my old tv shows and sang one of his favorite Ernest Tubb songs then
followed that with "Country Bumpkin" before it was even released to the
public to become the monster hit. In 1966 Paul Yandell took the old
guitar and showed me his guitar intro on “Break My Mind” that he played
on George Hamilton IV record.In 1986 Buck Owens picking up the old guitar to show me the licks that he played on Tommy Collins hit record of “High On A Hilltop” in the early 50’s when Buck was still a musician doing sessions, and before he became a star. Keith Whitley came to my office in the early days of CMT and picked up the old guitar and did a favorite Lefty Frizzell song, “ I Never Go Around Mirrors" that he had just recorded. Years before, in my Hotel room in Atlanta while on tour, Lefty Frizzell came to my room after the show and sitting in the straight back chair by the writing table, he picked up my old guitar and sang that same song that he and Whitey Shaffer had just written. I still get chill bumps thinking about that. I know those finger prints are still there, warm and real on the smooth wood of of one of the guitar necks. Jerry Jeff Walker played the old guitar and sang his song, "Mister Bojangles" and told me how he came to write it, at 18 years of age, when he was in jail in New Orleans with the old black street dancer for being drunk and disorderly and later realized that that old man would be a great character for a song. Yeah, I reckon so. Those are all magic times for me, shared with the old guitar.
The old guitar got me through many a lonely night in some Hotel room when the crowds had gone home and the entertainers were left alone in another strange town. Those early morning alone times were when the songs were written, when the thoughts would become words and the tune would flood your mind and come out in your fingers on the guitar, just as if the melody lived in the old guitar and was waiting for you to bring it out. These all alone times, coming down from the performance high, were only made bearable by the music and the comfort of the old guitar.
Years have passed since I nestled the body and neck of the old guitar into the guitar stand in the corner, no longer a performer but still connected at the heart. It stands there as a symbol of my lifetime spent with music, over 60 years since the journey started at the counter of Ike Martin's Music Store in Springfield, Missouri. Mr. Martin took down the first guitar from its slot among the many guitars along the wall and said, "Here you are, son, take good care of it and it should last you a long time." Well, at 12 years old I had no idea just how long that time would be, but looking back now it seems pretty clear, I wasn't taking care of it......the old guitar was taking care of me.
Stan
No comments:
Post a Comment