Clapton's Guitar

This is such a guy’s book. It’s also very journalistic, which is a style of writing I don’t usually care for. It’s good journalistic writing, but it’s still got that magazine sound to it. It’s a book I’d have never read except that it was our book club’s choice. (and I made the choices this year) That’s one of the great advantages of book clubs.

St. John is every boy who ever wanted to get up on stage and make love to a guitar, as it vibrated against his belly and down his thighs. Music is a very physical art and more than many men have poured their souls into a guitar.

The real fun of this book is that it’s about people with passions. It’s about friendship. It’s about being on the quest. It’s not my quest, mind, but the energy of their passion and their questing and the devotion the fellows end up having for each other rings a corresponding bell in my soul. After all, I just spent $$$ to go all the way to New York to knit in a hotel!

Ahh. But it was knitting. With friends. Yes. Allen St. John and I sing the same song.

Oh. And Eric Clapton has almost nothing to do with this story. He’s just the name to be dropped, like saying you rode in the same elevator with Lily Chin while you were at Stitches. Which was good, since I hadn’t heard Eric Clapton since he sang For Your Love with the Yardbirds. I’d never even heard Layla! I had to go listen to some soundclips on amazon dot com. But don’t worry. Even rock music innocents like me can feel the passion in this quest for a Wayne Henderson Guitar. And the sound clips of Wayne Henderson on A dot com were much more appealing to me. I’m a sucker for flat pick guitar. Sigh.