Between the Strings

Book excerpt: "BETWEEN THE STRINGS: THE SECRET LIVES OF GUITARS is a collection of more than one-hundred selected short stories, each with a guitar at its center. A veritable compendium of the world's greatest guitarists, from BB to ZZ (B.B. King to ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, that is), the stories are inspiring, uplifting, illuminating, humorous, stirring, and edifying. Some of the stories are simply entertaining in the way they take unexpected twists and turns. Others are biographical. Many involve a guitar that was received, given away, lost, stolen, recovered, offered to its player a special song, or was pivotal in a personal relationship or life experience. Each of these stories reveals something of the human spirit, as well as something of the supernatural that sometimes makes its way into our ordinary, everyday existence. But in every case, the variety of experiences, settings, and remarkable outcomes are linked by the common celebration of life with the guitar. To paraphrase Ann Petry, ""Everything you ever had, everything you ever lost. It's all there in the guitar- pain and hate and trouble and peace and quiet and love."" There is so much more to music than meets the ears. To discover that, one needs only to read ""between the strings."" FEATURES: Les Paul, Don McLean, George Benson, Andy Griffith, Bob Weir (Grateful Dead), Peter Frampton, Doc Watson, Christopher Parkening, Eric Johnson, Earl Klugh, Jack White (White Stripes), Rick Derringer, Taj Mahal, Chet Atkinsmore than 100 artists in all."