Last week I wrote about my brother and his music. I've been on a journey of sorts, learning more about him and his guitars, about the music that meant so much to him and to me because he played it. I also have been on physical journeys, meeting with people to find out more about his guitars, the ones that he played and loved and made his music on over the years of his life from as far back as I can remember.
I'll be writing more in coming weeks about some of the wonderful experiences this quest has brought into my life, and of the people who have been surrounding me as I learn about my brother, his music and his guitars. For now, I wanted to share a photograph that I've had for many years that a shared with a few of these wonderful guitarists who have become friends as we talk and they share their knowledge and love of the instrument with me. Through sharing this photograph of my brother when he was a teenager, playing guitar on the front porch of the home where I grew up, I learned that he was a bass player first, before going on to play acoustic and electric guitars and to composing and arranging music.
The bass in this photograph was identified by several of these new friends immediately as a Hofner, and described to me as the bass that was made famous by Paul McCartney. When I heard that I joked that he was a guitar snob even at age 14 or 15. It as a joke of love because I know how much his guitars meant to him. He put everything he had into finding the best he could and customizing them. Music was his life and his guitars and his music were a part of him that will always be to me a deep part of who he was.
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