A Perfectly Good Guitar by Chuck Holley

Author:Chuck Holley [Holley, Chuck]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2016-03-16T04:00:00+00:00

JACK LAWRENCE

DOC’S MARTIN

I have a 1945 model D-18 Martin. It was given to me by a guy I worked with for twenty-seven years, Doc Watson.

He bought this guitar in 1963 and used it on a good many of his Vanguard Records in the 1960s. He used it on records like Home Again! He used it on the record he did with Flatt and Scruggs, Strictly Instrumental. And he used it on Doc Watson on Stage, a record that is a bible for aspiring flatpickers.

Every year, Doc and I played at a place called The Down Home in Johnson City, Tennessee. We usually played there the weekend before Christmas.

The first time I played there with him in 1985, I picked Doc up, went to The Down Home, played, and came back to his house, where I stayed the night.

The next morning, I got up early and went downstairs to his music room. Behind the stereo in the corner, under about a half-inch of dust, was this old Martin guitar. I picked it up and dusted it off. The bridge was coming off and it had maybe two or three strings on it. I recognized that guitar as the D-18 I had seen on record covers.

When Doc came into the room, I was tapping on it to check for loose braces.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

I said, “I found this old guitar in the corner, and I believe it still has some music in it. You ought to fix it up.”

“That guitar is road dead,” he said. “I wore that thing out. I took it to Africa . . . it’s been all around the world. It was in a car accident and was thrown out of the car and out of the case on the side of the road. It’s just road dead.”

“I think I could probably fix it.”

“It’s not really worth anything.” he said. “One of these days, I’ll just give it to you.”

It didn’t happen that weekend.

A pattern developed. Every year, I’d pick Doc up, we’d go to Johnson City, do The Down Home, and come back to his house. I’d get up in the morning, go downstairs to the music room, and pick that guitar up. I’d sniff the sound hole, bang on the top, and tell Doc it had music in it.

Then he’d say, “One of these days, I’ll just give that to you.” This went on for four, maybe five years.

Finally, he said, “Aw hell, just take it. But I want to keep the Grover Rotomatic tuning machines that are on it because that’s the only thing that’s worth anything on the guitar.”

So I took those off and left them with him. And I took it home.

I did most of the work on it myself. It was in worse shape than I thought. I put it on my workbench and spent a couple of months tinkering around with it. I had to replace some wood underneath the bridge, put a new bridge plate inside, fix a couple of cracks, refret it, that sort of thing.

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