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If it could only talk….
By Kimberly Kelly
Nov. 10, 2008 at 12:48 PM
Some of you may know, I’m in the market for a guitar and anxiously awaiting the start of lessons. It’s one of those things that I sat down in youth for “more important and less challenging things”. Now that I look in the rear view mirror… as with many things in my youth, I regret it.
I found the most beautiful, vintage, ‘piece of art’ guitar, on yes…
the very unromantic e-bay!
George Harrison, of the Beatles sang about a guitar gently weeping, on the iconic, White Album and later on The Concert for Bangladesh (both I have on vinyl)…. If only this guitar could talk. This guitar that stared at me from the cold, plastic, computer screen of e-bay… was tugging on my heart. I just can’t get it off my mind, and as if it were not stunning enough to look at, it also has a story that accompanies it. A story that you might expect an older ‘gent to be telling you on a cold, foggy, night in an Irish pub as a tear gathered on the edge of his eye. This is the guitar that has stolen my affections for the time being. A guitar with not only a soul, but an old one at that!
The story is: this artist would make money on the side playing folk tunes in coffee houses, but would always forget what to play next. Being a sculpture, he began carving different pictures on the face of this 1940’s Martin guitar… each symbol, a hint to the man as to a song he could play. This aging man, can no longer play the instrument and is selling not only his long time companion, the guitar; but also the story.
Below is a diagram of the songs that the carvings stand for… some sort of 60’s coffee house hieroglyphics.
Now I know, the skeptic in me said, “what a great concoction to sell a guitar!”, but the poet in me insist that if the story is false… I don’t even want to know.
See you guys on the show,
Kimberly
UPDATE (11/12/08):
Well I heard from the artist/musician himself… “Newt Malerman”.
You can google him and see MANY masterpeices he has done.
The story… TRUE.
I was so glad to hear that, may the story live on!
kimberly
