1964 and a Half

It had been some time since Jonny had bought a new guitar.  And it had been some time since Jonny had written a new song.  It had also been some time since Jonny had played a gig.  In fact, it’d been some time since anyone had heard Jonny play anything.  Except for his girlfriend’s dog that is. 

But when you’re in a hole it’s easy to see the stars.  They’re all you can see if you don’t want to look at the dirt.  So one day he took his flexible friend down to tin-pan alley and looked at the guitars on sale there.  He didn’t need a new guitar, he had three already, but he did need to feel like he was moving forward; and when you’re in a rut buying something beyond your means feels like progress.  He felt serious about his purchase so he wore a concerned look, reckoned it made him appear more professional.  He wore the same look for job interviews. 

‘Mmm,’ he thought as he looked in a shop window, oblivious to the anonymous London heads swirling about him, ‘I like the look of that one.’

But there was no way he could afford it and he knew it.  He’d be paying it off for years: 269 weeks in fact.  He moved on.  He liked it here, he knew this street like the back of his hand, he walked it every time he came to town.  He didn’t always need to, but he liked being among the musicians who came here... and he loved believing he was one of them.  So when he came across something he hadn’t seen before he was surprised and intrigued. 

The shop must have been new but it didn’t look that way; it looked as if it’d been there forever, forgotten, like a jungle temple.  The guitars behind the dirty window were dusty, the paraphernalia dated.  It was the type of place you could pick up a bargain, or a relic, or maybe even a curse.  He stepped inside, it smelt musty, no-one else was in there, he didn’t see where the voice came from. 

‘Alright man,’ it said.  

‘Hello,’ Jonny said back, trying to throw his voice in every direction, trying not to lose his cool.

A man appeared from behind a beaded curtain wearing a kaftan, a beard, and a mop of curly hair turned salt and pepper.  His skin was dark and the flesh around his eyes was ragged, though the eyes themselves were bright and alert.  He wasn’t wearing any shoes.  A roll-up was pinched between his thumb and forefinger; he took a long drag and coughed, once but deep. 

‘You after a guitar, man?’ he said.  Every word was low and crisp, heavy with his London accent; slow, like it was dragging the weight of his weed dependency.  His movements were the same.

‘Yeah,’ Jonny said. 

‘Then this is the right place to come.  Asking for a guitar in here’s like walking into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and asking for a chocolate bar.’  He drew again on the smoking butt, then dropped it on the floor and put it out with his foot.  ‘What kinda guitar you after?’

‘Depends what you’ve got, I guess.  I’ve got a bit to spend.’ 

Jonny wasn’t normally a bragger but he was curious; and if you want to know what a man has to offer, it’s best not to look like you’re wasting his time.  And Jonny wanted to know. 

‘You play, I take it?’ the man said. ‘What I mean is, the guitar’s for you?’

‘Yeah, it’s for me, yeah.’

‘Well that’s a start.  I hate people coming in here and buying guitars for their friends or family.  It’s tough to sell a guitar to a man you’ve never seen.’  The man touched one of the corkscrews in his fringe.  ‘So what are you playing at the moment?’ 

‘Gibson.’  Then quickly, ‘Les Paul.’

‘Cosmetically the finest guitar around.  I always preferred the sound of a Rickenbacker myself, but that’s down to my (gesture) ears.’

‘S’a great guitar.’

‘Got a couple of things you might be interested in...’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Cool,’ Jonny said before realising he didn’t know what the man was offering.  ‘What is it?’ 

‘Look at this, she’s beautiful,’ he said, taking it down from the wall.  ‘See this fretboard?  Look at the finish on that, look at the grain.’  He stroked it as if he’d made it himself... maybe he had?  The guitar wasn’t branded.

‘S’a nice looking guitar.’ 

‘This fretboard’s cut from the same tree as the guitar Jimi Hendrix set fire to at Monterey.’

‘What, you mean the same type of tree?’

‘No man, I mean the exact piece of wood.’

‘Right,’ Jonny said.  He wasn’t sure if he believed that, or if he could afford to believe it.  ‘What about that guitar?’

‘What, the Epiphone?  Now that’s a guitar beyond its years.  Self-tuning strings that one.’

‘What?  Is that possible?’

‘Yeah man, anything’s possible.  High tensile fibreglass that reacts to the temperature of its surroundings.  You’ve heard that every action has an equal and opposite reaction?  Well this is the opposite reaction - perfectly calculated.  Under normal conditions cold strings contract, but these ones expand, and at precisely the same rate they’d normally shrink - so nothing happens.  The guitar stays in tune.  Designed by NASA.  It’s a miracle really, they use the same technology on space rockets.’

‘Mmm, I’m not too keen on the shape.’

Flying V’s had never been Jonny’s thing.  They only looked cool on people with a name that began with V - like Val or Vic, or… Lenny Kravitz.

‘Shape’s important, man.’

‘What else you got?’ 

‘Tell you what,’ the man said.  ‘An’ you have to understand that I’m only showing you this because I think you know what you’re on about, because you look like a serious musician.  I reckon I’ve got just the thing for you.’  

On the far wall, a huge poster of Jimmy Page hung in a frame.  ‘Look away a second,’ the man said.

Jonny turned around and admired the instruments.  The man carefully removed the frame from the wall - quietly apologising to Jimmy as he did so - and deftly fiddled with the dial of his large safe until the lock popped, and the door opened.  Inside was a tattered brown guitar case.  He took it out and opened it.  The lining was purple velvet. 

‘This, my friend, is a rare thing.  A 1964 and a half Gibson Les Paul.  You weren’t alive in ‘64 but I (gesture) was.  Fine time to be around, man; something started then that didn’t last more than five years.  Was gone by the time I was thirty.  But when I was in my twenties it was there.  An energy and an originality, nothing like that’s happened since.  It might have happened before, but I wouldn’t know that because I misplaced the memories from my previous incarnation... Do you have them?’

‘Um, no.’

‘No, thought not.  Here, take her...’

Jonny took the guitar, handling it like a pirate inspecting a new sword from an old blacksmith.

‘S’a beast,’ Jonny said.  ‘Mind if I plug it in?’

‘Course not,’ the man replied, who continued to speak as he rummaged round for an amplifier.  ‘You know the story about this guitar, man?’  

Jonny didn’t try to answer.  

‘... Gibson released it in June of 1964, hence 1964 and a half, and they only made 2000.  Initial sales were good, but six months later rumours started to circulate, people started reporting complaints; they said the guitar couldn’t be tuned, said you couldn’t get the sound out of it you wanted.  In the end Gibson recalled the guitars.  Most people obliged and got their money back, but a few didn’t.  And a couple of months after that, the old bluesman - Mr Whalebone Tiller - discovered the guitar could be tuned a certain way to create a wholly unique sound.  But it was too late, cos the Gibson warehouse had burnt down, only 150 guitars survived - y’know, those that weren’t sent back.  This, my friend, is one of them.  You can tell because it has the words point five signed on the base of the neck...’

He pointed to the mark but Jonny didn’t need to see it. 

‘S’a great sound,’ he said.

‘It is.  Some say that when the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane went down in ‘77, it wasn’t the impact that killed Ronnie van Zant, it was the fretboard of one of these - right through the throat.’  He paused for breath.  ‘D’you wanna know the price?’ 

Jonny didn’t.  He’d already made up his mind.  He’d never admit this to himself but his playing lacked style and substance, and this guitar had an abundance of both.  He wanted it, and he wanted everything connected with it.  He would’ve taken a matching plectrum if it was on offer.  It was going to make him the king of the open mic. 

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