Revisiting serendipity and presence
During the winter break we revisit a serendipitous encounter from 2018 that I almost missed.
All posts tagged: Rick Davis
Be present when serendipity strikes
You’ll never know that one of your guitar heroes is sitting in the seat next to you if you don’t take your head out of your phone or computer.
Think slow
Our 15-year-old nephew — a budding musician — was in town this past weekend, so I took him to the House of Musical Traditions in Takoma Park. There he could see every type of musical instrument known to humankind (plus some) and, frankly, it gave me an excuse to play a few good guitars. Not that I don’t have good guitars at home. Later in the day my nephew had a chance to see and play my two prized Running Dog guitars made by luthier Rick Davis. Davis was profiled in Tim Brookes’ 2005 book Guitar: An American Life, where the author seeks to replace a badly damaged first guitar with a hand-crafted one “for the second half of my life.” He writes that as he nears 50 years of age, he finds an itch that can only be scratched with a new guitar. And as Brookes notes, “Guitar makers even have a word for these baby-boomers-who-always-wanted-to-be-great-guitarists-and-now-have-the-money-to-indulge-those-dreams: dentists.” “Much later, after the guitar is finished, Rick will refer to ‘the eternal and infinite capacity of …
Guitar: An American Life
Tim Brookes’ 2005 book includes extensive features on Rick Davis – the builder of my two Running Dog guitars.
G.A.S. continued: Or how I ended up with another guitar
I hadn’t planned to buy another guitar. Seriously. But sometimes good things happen when you least expect it. I HAD planned to try to meet the maker of my Running Dog guitar on my next trip to Seattle. Since I bought it used from a guitar shop in Amherst, Massachusetts, I didn’t know Rick Davis, the builder who made my parlor style instrument back in 2001. But after playing it for a couple of years, I wanted to meet the guy who built such wonderful small guitars with the beautiful tone. A recent trip to the west coast gave me the opportunity to stop by Rick’s shop in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle (aka, The Center of the Universe). Rick shares his shop with his partner, Cat Fox, and they couldn’t have been more welcoming. Rick told me the provenance of my 2001 Parlor guitar. I learned he was the subject of Tim Brooke’s 2005 book Guitar: An American Life. And I played a beautiful 2011 Ought-3 model. (I also noodled on a baritone guitar, …
More to Come... 