(can be blown up to ridiculously high resolution by clicking on it to open the image, and then opting for full-size in the new window, since it’s way bigger than any computer screen can display)
In 1974, I bought a 1973 Alvarez/Yairi classic (with the carved face headstock) from my friend and mentor Stanley Garrison. For the better part of my 20s, it was my main guitar.
The guitar played beautifully, with a full-throated classic tone, and was in generally excellent condition, thought it exhibited the occasional pick mark on the top… so I was immediately over the “new axe” obsession as far as wear & tear was concerned.
I installed a Barcus-Berry hotdot in the bridge for stage amplification (all of this was pre-piezo), and played it non-stop for close to ten years. In the process, I burned through TWO sets of frets (it takes a lot of playing to wear irreparable string dips into metal frets with nylon strings). During the second refret I had my luthier (a gal named Dianne who lived north of Muncie IN) hand-cut some sweet abalone inlays on the neck.
Eventually, with my early (which can be interpreted as “undisciplined”) practicing of flamenco techniques, my nails chewed through the top finish in spots. Didn’t bother me much, I considered them battle scars. Guitars are, first and foremost, tools.
Well, my girlfriend at the time, being a rather artsy kinda gal, one day smoked some pot and got it into her head to surprise me by covering the bare wood sections with carefully shaped swatches of upholstery material, using Elmer’s glue!
When I got home from work, she proudly presented me with my upgraded Yairi. Visually, I had to admit the guitar was way cool, but I was naturally concerned about the fabric dampening the sound. The glue had thoroughly dried, and surprisingly, I couldn’t tell all that much of a difference in the clarity or volume of the axe… certainly not enough to make an issue out of it.
Truth be told, I had my eye on a new Ovation with their brand-new piezo under-saddle transducer, and so was anticipating a new axe in my immediate future, anyway.
Because I had acquired the axe from my buddy Stanley, and had heavily modified it over the years, the old Yairi has always held much sentimental value to me… no way could I ever part with her. The guitar has aged well, though the neck/body joint has relaxed a bit, so the action isn’t as sweet as it once was, but it’s still quite playable.
I keep the old Yairi in my teaching studio (along with an Epiphone 5-string banjo I inherited from a dear student-turned-friend who honored me in his will). The Yairi gets gets played every week, and garners compliments from all who see her.
Of all my instruments, I’ve had the Yairi the longest… I think. I also acquired an Alvarez Denver Belle banjo that year (which I also still have), but I can’t recall which came to me first. Wow, it’s going on 46 years now I’ve had these two!
Musicians grow (quite literally) attached to their instruments. When played deeply enough, they become a vital extension of ourselves, an integral part of all that makes us individuals who make music.
Today I have more legacy instruments in my collection than instruments I actually play in my daily work. Some of these old gems rarely leave their cases, but are so woven into the fabric (there’s that word again) of my personal history that it will take an act of God to separate me from them.
I seldom name my guitars, but if I were to name the old Yairi, I suppose I would reference its origin, and call it “Garrison”.
One might construe from all this that I’ve never let go of an instrument. I wish that were true. As preface: Years ago I decided that I would allow myself only three regrets in life (any more than that strikes me as self-indulgence), and I’ve chosen those three regrets very carefully. Two of them I’ll not go into at present, but topping my short list of regrets is a guitar that I wish to God I had never sold. I should get around to telling that story one day.
