The guitar man

 It started with an old hand-me-down guitar I found at a garage sale. If only it could talk—what stories would it tell? The house belonged to a little-known musician. Pictures and sheet music piqued my curiosity, so I asked the person in charge about him. She smiled, pleased by my interest, and began to share his story.

In 1960, my son fell in love with the music of those times. He attended Woodstock and taught himself to play the songs of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Neil Young, Cat Stephens, and many others. He soon began writing his own songs and eventually performed in coffee shops and other small venues to gauge audience reactions, which were generally considered pretty good.

He was approached by a record producer at one such venue, who gave him his card and told him he should consider becoming a studio guitarist, as his playing was very good, and you never knew when someone with a say would offer him a contract. So his life as a studio guitarist grew, and over time, he found himself playing with some of the names he had grown up loving.

His talent followed him to cities across the land, where he played with Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, and others who recognized his talent. It wasnt long before he had the opportunity to play his own songs as a solo artist, opening concerts for the headliners. His music was more than a story written on a tour bus; it was the sound of his heart, his soul, his very existence.

It sounds like he was meant to be who he was, playing with the most famous bands across the globe and getting his own music heard by the world. What happened to him he asked his Mom. She sat with his old guitar across her lap as she softly plucked the strings, and said, "I imagine in his heart he knew the music had stopped coming to him, that his words, although meaningful, didn't matter to him anymore." It was as if the well finally dried up, leaving him with melodies too difficult to compose and words too hard to write.

He quit touring and returned home, where he only played to himself and his Mom. When he developed arthritis in his hands, he put the guitar in the garage along with his sheet music and pictures of himself with the greatest musicians of all time. She hoped someone who might know of him would buy those things and keep his image alive for generations to come. It seemed to her that people with talent sometimes got overlooked but never overbooked.

I walked away with every piece of sheet music he composed and the pictures of the stars he played with, but left the guitar behind with his Mom. I later put together a book containing his written words and melodies, and, of course, a picture of the guitar he loved so very much on the cover. Not surprisingly, the book sold worldwide, and his music continued to live on. The title was simply The Guitar Man.

Mike 2025