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When my turn came I started to walk up with my Martin D-41 12-string guitar and his eyes lit up. The other musicians were dazzled by it too and I realized I’d played it for 30 years and hadn’t thought much about it. After I did my set a guy said I should be careful because someone might try to steal it. I don’t know how much it’s worth, because the neck is broken above the nut. The airlines did it.
In the old days you could carry a guitar on a plane. After 9/11 you had to check it in as baggage. Not only that, you had to sign a waver saying it was improperly packed. You could have it in a bullet proof Kevlar case wrapped in bubble wrap and they’ll still say it’s improperly packed, which means that when (not if, when) they break it they won’t pay for it. I always signed that waver Mickey Mouse and nobody noticed.
The airlines broke my guitar about once every two years and my all-time hero is the guy who wrote the song about United Airlines breaking his guitar. It went viral and was sweet revenge for all of us powerless guitar players.
The last time they broke it I was flying to a ship to do shows and you’d be amazed how few guitar repair shops there are on cruise ships. I went down to the carpenter shop in crew area and they found some Elmer’s Glue. Amazingly, I’d toured the Martin factory in Nazareth, PA, and they told me after experimenting with hundreds of glues, Elmer’s had turned out to be the best and was the glue they used for their guitars. So I got lucky on the ship. I glued the peg head back to the neck, thankful it had broken with jagged edges so there was a lot of glue area.
I didn’t have clamps and knew the glue wouldn’t take the strain so I resorted to my golf knowledge. Years ago when I was a kid working in the pro shop, the clubheads for drivers and fairway woods were made of persimmon and the shaft was stuck through the head. Then it was “whipped”. Whipping is twine, like fishing line, wrapped around the head where it meets the shaft and it’s amazingly strong. So I got some dark blue line and whipped my guitar peg head to the neck. It held, and I did my shows.
That whipping has held for 20 years. So I play a broken guitar.
The guitar has had a couple other adventures. Once the airlines lost it and promised to deliver it to my house. On the day of the delivery I called and they said yes, they’d delivered it. Well, it hadn’t come to me so I went next door to see if they’d heard anything and there, inside the screen door, was my guitar. I love the airlines.
Another time I flew to Costa Rica and they lost my guitar. I went through the usual routine, checking with the baggage people and putting in a claim and then there was nothing to do but go to the ship. It was a long drive in a minivan. Luckily the ship was there overnight so the next morning I got the ship's agent to drive me back to the airport. I walked in and went to the baggage area to ask the