PatrickMead.net

I am in Louisiana doing a few events in Jennings. That means I am a long way from my material on Hidden People or Hidden History. To give you something to look at for a couple days, I am posting pics of my guitars. Greg England did that awhile back and I enjoyed seeing them. If you are my Facebook friend, you have probably already seen these. I’ll try to get some more material up here soon. When I am in this area, I usually have time to travel to the Sabine River area and contact a few of my friends among the Sabines and Redbones. This time, I haven’t the time to set that up. Still, I may have some interesting bits to report…

In the meantime…

This is my Taylor classical guitar — the NS24. I have had half a dozen cheap classicals and they served me well, but it was a wonderful day when I recently found this one, used but with no sign it was ever played. It has an incredible, deep voice and is the easiest guitar in the world to play.

I also recently came upon a Breedlove with a cedar top and mahogany back and sides. It has the new Breedlove bracing and its tone is exceptionally sharp, cutting through other instruments. It’s tuner is the most accurate built-in tuner I’ve ever used. It isn’t for every song, but its unique voice bought it a place in my home and heart.

Here are, left to right, my Taylor 214e, a Gretsch resonator, and a Martin 000. The Taylor is by no means the best Taylor, but it was my first pure acoustic Taylor. Love it. The Gretsch takes me back to Beale Street in Memphis every time I play it. The Martin is a Mexican Martin, meaning it is one of the cheaper ones they’ve started making south of the border in recent years. It is thin bodied so it is very easy to play as I sit on the couch or in a chair. It sounds better than it has any right to.

My Taylor T5 is a marvel of engineering and the luthier’s art. I play it frequently in special shows. It can be tweaked to sound like anything from an acoustic to a distorted Strat in full bellow. Then, of course, there’s my 12 string Alvarez-Yairi, the one that won Kami’s heart for me. Off to the right is a very cheap Squier electric that I use just to play around with. I’ve never performed with it because, frankly, I’m just not that good with pure electric stylings.

Life would be so much duller without ukuleles. Here are three of mine. The purple one is a Fluke, a newer form of the old instrument. It is nearly indestructible and has a wonderful, clean tone. The middle uke is a banjo ukulele. If you ever saw the old British films starring George Formby, you had to have fallen in love with the banjo uke. Look for clips of him on YouTube. The uke on the right is made by Ovation. It is an electric ukulele. Yes, you read that right.

From left to right, a standard banjo (very cheap, but it plays nice enough), a silent classical, and a travel sized banjo by Harmony. The banjo was given to me by a very kind older gentleman in Indiana about fifteen years ago. The silent guitar can only be heard through an amp or through headphones/earbuds. It is great for practice and, on stage, it looks weird enough to be cool. The travel banjo is easy to play in hotel rooms when the people in the next room annoy me.

There are a few others laying around the house and, of course, I still have the three guitars I bought for my 8 month old grandson (real guitars, not kid ones) but these are my favorites. No dust ever shows up on these babies because each of them gets a little play every week… except when I am far, far away as I am this week. I miss my babies.