Category: Playing the Guitar

I grew up in a home that had an old acoustic guitar just lying around in it. It was my mom’s.

Way back in the early 1940’s, she and some of her wild siblings and friends formed a locally popular country-western band that played at the area Grange halls. According to a 1999 article in Paper Talks: as dirt-poor as they were, Ma’s (Violet’s) older sister Elva earned enough cash by “cutting potato seed” to purchase a guitar for herself and one for her. They named themselves The Bar-K Buckaroos. Mom’s brother Chester, a born con man, acted as the band’s “manager” under the imaginative name Ace Dixon.

(A cherished Lyford family story is that our dad, Raymond, was smitten and became a big fan of mom’s during one of their concerts. Reportedly performing a popular song of the day called “Winking at You,” she came strolling down through the audience, coming to a stop right in front of him, and then personally serenading him with a few lines. {And winked at him!} And the rest is history.)

So anyway, the guitar. When I was in junior high, Ma taught me three basic chords, all in the key of C: C, F, and G7. I discovered that with those three, I could navigate my wannabe singer’s voice through most of the popular songs at that time. Eventually, however, I found that if I ever wanted to be able to handle The Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun,” I had to familiarize myself with the A minor chord as well. I mean, anybody and everybody who was learning guitar that I knew wanted to play that particular song, it being so dark and cool.

Back in 1960 I had a friend who owned an electric guitar and an amp. I’d spend hours with him in his bedroom taking turns blasting his neighbors. We’d crank that amp up to a 7 on the Richter scale and let’er rip. This Wayne Smith was so much more talented than I was. (And if you’re wondering how good I was, my answer is: not so much. I think I got to be… promising, but that’s as far as I ever got.)

I’d learned the do re mi scale in C though, which enabled me to pick out the melodies of popular songs in that key fairly easily. So from Wayne’s bedroom, the neighbors got treated to my loud rendition of “Apache,” an instrumental made by famous by The Shadows in 1960, or The Ventures’ popular “Walk Don’t Run.” On top of that, and being nuts over Johnny Cash, I worked hard to learn to play the chords of his hits in his signature style while picking out the melodies to boot.

But like I said, “promising, but that’s as far as I ever got.” There are a couple of reasons:

(1) I’m lazy.

I’d already learned to play practically everything I wanted to play in the key of C. Trying to master playing the necessary chords for pop songs in other keys? Well, that was difficult, wasn’t it. Smacked of effort. So why bother? C was good enough for me. And besides, if I wanted to play songs in higher or lower chords… hey, that’s what capos are for, right?

So… laziness.

(2) I suffered from terminal stage fright.

Although in the safety and privacy of my room I practiced! practiced! practiced! like I was trying to get to Carnegie Hall (and had even begun to show some definite growth), the problem was this: the moment I’d feel a few eyes bearing down on me while playing, my brain would just fly right out the window.

It’s been that way all my life. For instance, as a kid I played a lot of basketball with a number of older kids. Every weekend after Central Hall Rec Center closed down at 10:00 pm, a bunch of us would rent the floor and play ball till 1:00 am next morning. I got really good at it too. I’d honed a hook shot that was deadly. I was hell on wheels.

Now of course, you’re probably thinking, Oh sure, in HIS OWN OPINION he was hell on wheels. So… how good was I really? Answer: good enough to make the starting five on the A-squad three years running. In 7^th grade. In 8^th grade. And in my freshman year.

Why?

Stage fright. Oh, I was just great during practices. And in each one of those three years, when the jump-ball tip-off signaled the start of first game of the season, I was right out there on the floor. with the rest of the starting team. But…

There’d end up being about 150 fans’ eyes gawking at us, but particularly right at me (or so I felt). Consequently, I became dazed, confused, and “frozen.” One of my teammates would shoot the ball over to me and guess what: I’d just stand there, watching the ball bounce off my chest and disappear out of bounds.

And after that happened twice, Coach would call me over to the sidelines, look deep into my eyes and ask, sincerely, “Tommy. What’s going on?!” And my answer (to each successive coach, three years running) was always the same: an embarrassed, “I… don’t know…” After which I’d spend the rest of the season warming the bench.

Sad irony: I was as bad at performing with the guitar as I was at basketball. And not only that but, yeah, up through my sophomore year in high school it was also that way when talking to pretty girls. Which sucked, but… it just was what it was.

See, this is what the ancient Greeks called a ‘tragic flaw.’

However (A) by 1962, I was still looking sort-of-hopefully toward my (possible?) musician-future-stardom with some degree of optimism, but (B) although I had no way of ever expecting the irony of it (nobody would or could have), the future-BIG-payday teased at by the windfall of Ma’s guitar wasn’t going to be about…

…me.

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Now, I’ve mentioned in previous posts that my best friend throughout high school (and beyond) was a fella named Neil Mallett. He grew up in Sebec, Maine, located a few miles north of my hometown of Dover-Foxcroft. From kindergarten through eighth grade, Sebec kids attended school in Sebec. However, beginning with their freshman year, they joined us ‘townies by enrolling in Foxcroft Academy.

Neil and I were both enrolled in the College Prep curriculum at FA, so the two of us ended up taking all the same classes. Not only that, but Neil ended up sitting right behind me in pretty much every class due to the fact that our unimaginative teachers could think of no better way than alphabetical order to arrange our seating plans. This recurring proximity sealed our friendship. Consequently, I soon found myself becoming a frequent visitor out at his home in Sebec.

We didn’t have a lot in common at first. I lived in town in a house resting on a boring single acre of land; Neil lived in the country. Our house was boxed in by the houses of our many, many next-door neighbors. He lived in a not-at-all crowded, neighbor-filled-neighborhood. His homestead had all kinds of things mine didn’t. An old field truck that I could drive. A tractor. A huge barn. A flock of sheep. A big German Shepherd. At least four other brothers. A mom filled with spooky stories. Big country breakfasts every morning. And lots of fields with haying to be done.

It was wonderful. For me, a rural agricultural Disneyland. I wanted to live out there in Mallettville. I wanted to be a Mallett.

I stayed over often.

All kinds of things happened out there. For one thing, I got fear-frozen up maybe 200+ feet up on the 260-foot, still-under-construction Telstar tower that was adjacent to one of their properties.

Practically all the boys from miles around felt compelled to climb that tower at one time or another. It was a rite of passage.

Another thing that happened is that I got to spend almost an entire summer haying out there. My God, it was hard, hot and sweaty work, but I loved every minute of it.

Now, harking back to the real adventure: one time out there, in the winter of ‘62, I got to talking about how much I was enjoying playing my Ma’s guitar at home. Neil’s and his younger brother David’s ears perked right up my descriptions. And so I got asked to bring Ma’s guitar out there for them to check out next time I came over.

So we made plans for that.

“It was a dark and stormy night.” Freezing, windy, and snowing. One of Neil’s older brothers pulled up in our driveway to chauffer the guitar and me off to Sebec. And since the entire rear window of the car was for some reason missing and the snowflakes were swirling around inside the interior, I wrapped the instrument up in an old blanket to keep it as dry as possible. It was about a 10-minute ride.

So anyway, the guitar arrived in one piece (and no worse for the wear), and we brought it into the warm Mallett living room. Everybody gathered around for my little demonstration. And believe it or not, even though I was among very good friends, I still got as nervous as hell while doing it.

Wow though, Neil and young David really got into the whole idea that with only three, maybe four chords, you could play “any song.”

Sounds pretty much like a pitch from one of those ads in the back of some 1950’s comic book, doesn’t it. But that is pretty much what I told them anyway. But of course…that turned out to be an unintentional untruth of course.

Anyway, it was a hands-on experience for them, each taking turns, trying out the chords, and immediately learning about the guitar-player’s painful fingertips. But I figured that, like most kids who just dream and dream of playing the guitar, that the nitty-gritty reality of the commitment involved would end up making short work of that dream. Besides, they didn’t even own a guitar.

But unbeknownst to me, the guitar I’d just handed over was like Jack’s magic beans in the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Something immediately took root in these two guys. I mean, by placing that completely ordinary musical instrument into their sweaty little palms, I was unwittingly creating a monster. (Well, two monsters actually.) (And to be clear: I’m talking ‘monster’ in a good way… in a very good way.)

Because in a few weeks, they had a guitar of their own. And in a few more weeks, they had two guitars! And damn, they could both play them! Head and shoulders above what I was capable of. And on top of that they’d discovered they could sing as well, David assuming the lead vocalist role, and Neil backing him up with the harmony. They quickly assembled a playlist of popular folk and country songs and took them out on the road.

Next thing you knew, they were performing a couple of numbers before the student body at Foxcroft. And were a sensation. Everybody loved their sound. Word got out. Their reputation spread. They were asked to perform gigs at Rec Center, churches, weddings, and grange halls just like my mom. And they had become… The Mallett Brothers.

(Yes, I know– right this very moment there is a nationally popular band called The Mallett Brothers [David’s two sons, Luke and Will] out there making a big, successful splash in the music world, but Neil and David were the original Mallett Brothers back in the 60’s.)

Before you knew it, they were even showing up on television— TV talent shows, performing in guest spots with other well-known local singers, and then (lo and behold!) they came out with their own television show!

Early in the 60’s I was fortunate in that, being such a close family friend and all, I was allowed to accompany them on their various grange hall gigs all over the area. I liked to think of myself as sort of their ‘roadie’ but, in reality, I was more of groupie, just tagging along for the adventure.

And then, in another blink of an eye it seemed, they began cutting a few 45 rpm records. And songwriting became added to the mix. That was a family affair, beginning with their mom, Pauline, who penned the song, “Solomon,” (the yellow label featured in the photo below). The Mallett Brothers were off and running.

These records found their way to radio stations around the state of Maine, got plenty of play time, and bolstered their growing popularity.

The 45 in the center is titled “Cole’s Express.” The story behind that one is that The Mallett Brothers got hired by a large firm in the small city of Bangor, ME, namely Cole’s Express. They were hired to sing their way north to south, east to west all over the state of Maine to promote Mr. Cole’s company. It was a lucrative deal.

Oh how I envied them, staying in motels, meeting all kinds of interesting people, and getting paid for doing something they were more than passionate about. The YouTube video below was recorded during one of their stops in Fort Fairfield, Maine.

But hey, one of the best and most memorable of the many gigs I got to accompany them on was on Monday, July 20th, 1963. This was during the total solar eclipse of that year, at the dead center of the eclipse path which lay smack-dab in Dexter, Maine. Dexter hosted an unforgettable 4-day celebration that included vendors, food, dancing, a talent show, and music.

Headlining the music on the stage that day was The Mallett Brothers. The weather was perfect. And a family of performers were so taken by David and Neil, that they invited us to come out to view the eclipse on their family’s farm. It was great. We got to watch the confused cows slowly heading in across the fields toward the barn only to stop and turn around when the sun came back out. And then we also got to hear the rooster crow an untimely cock-a-doodle-doo, announcing morning for the second time that day.

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So here’s my point… well, at least PART I of my point (look for one other ‘Part’ of the point in this adventure). So many things subsequently happened only because there was this old guitar, a left-over relic from the 1940’s, left leaning up against a side of our piano in the family living room back in the mid-1950s. I mean, suppose my mom never received that guitar in the first place, and that there’d never been a little country western group called the Bar-K Buckaroos. Would I have taken that amateur interest in playing a guitar anyway? I don’t see how. At least not then. Would I ever get some other opportunity to learn about those three chords? Possibly. A lot of kids did.

On the other hand, I’m pretty positive I would have met and befriended Neil anyway though, thanks to the alphabetical-seating-order-fetish of those unimaginative teachers of FA’s College Prep classes. But there wouldn’t have been that particular winter’s night gathering in the Mallett living room, listening to me playing those easy chords.

In fact, minus the cause (the guitar) and effect (David’s and Neil’s early musical career) I, Neil, and David could all very likely be living lives in some alternative reality. I mean… horror of all horrors, what if I’d (haha) gone over there and, in an enthusiastically glorified and charismatic manner, shared with them the basketball path I was futilely trying to master, and had somehow tantalized and mesmerized them with the amazing scientific precision of that deadly “hook shot” I had honed so sharply? Might then Neil and David have put their creative energies into competitive sports instead? And might David and Neil have become famous brother-athletes on a national scale, like Peyton and Eli Manning?

OK, now you’re probably wondering what it is I’m smoking. Just being facetious. But yeah. Really. What if there hadn’t been that guitar at all, eh? Did the guitar have anything to do with me finding a permanent girlfriend? Yes!

Did that guitar have anything to do with David and Neil crossing paths with The Man in Black, Johnny Cash? Yes, I believe so!

But stay tuned to find out. Look for “This Old Guitar, Part II” in the next day or two.

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