A fun week! Among many happenings, two stand out. The first lap steel of the year sang its first, and an old friend dropped in for a visit. Time is a twisting oddity to ponder when an old young friend is in town and comes by and you realize he’s older now by years than you were when he knew you. Alan was a kid that was a fixture in my old music shop in Melrose, MA, my old hometown I had returned to and opened the shop where I built my first guitars & basses. Not literally; he wasn’t a display case or record bin, he just hung around so much I hired him. My first helper! This was late ‘90s. It was great to see him again as a man, married with a great wife, two kids, career, and all that. He last knew me when I sold the shop in 2000 and headed off back to rural Texas, following the music thread off into another unknown chapter, this one probably involving building instruments too... but I had no idea when I pointed the hood down the highway. I just knew it was time and I felt called and my agreement with life on that side of the hill was to move on that when it happened. This time it was destiny. Never underestimate the long term effects of just showing up and doing what’s next. Here we are.
And here emerging from the workshop is the Texas Lap Steel Co. serial #17 01, a "Wimberley" model crafted from cypress from along the Blanco river. The Blanco tragically flooded in 2015 and this is the first complete instrument out of one big plank of this special wood I was able to get a hold of. I can’t fix what happened or the scars seen and unseen in our little town, but I CAN take a representative piece of these hundreds-of-years-old trees that used to line and shade the river, bring it back to life, and help it sing. This model was named for the town because its curves reminded me of the rivers that wind through it and, most of the time, are nothing but beautiful. The Wingfeather workshop builds a small number of our unique lap steel guitars per year – this one is shortly heading out for its home but I have a few in various stages that aren’t spoken for. Check out the “Other instruments” here.
Just got this from Sebastian in Chile, rocking his 10-year-old Birdsong Sadhana bass. If you want to be rocked back to the stone age (or vice-versa) check THIS out... it's got more balls than a truckload of elephants! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FGfE4nwjzw&feature=share
If you’re not tuned in to the Scott Beckwith or Birdsong Guitars pages on Facebook, you’re missing out! No outrage, no memes, just Monday morning inspirations, Throwback Thursday pictures, unreal deal “Saturday Sale” posts, and random workshop pictures between of basses & guitars… (and the occasional mockery of a viral post asking you to list bands). Find us & friend / follow / like! Thanks for being with us.
Everybody have a great weekend!
Listening to: Mississippi Fred McDowell You Gotta Move; Boston Don't Look Back; Sonny Rollins Vol. 2.