Guitar Man: A Six-String Odyssey, or, You Love that Guitar More than You Love Me [Paperback]

Will Hodgkinson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 26, 2006

The guitar is the iconic instrument of modern popular music. It is portable, it has history, and it will always be hip. But why has the guitar become such a classic? Will Hodgkinson, a wannabe guitar player, whose only experience was an afternoon's bashing on a friend's guitar at the age of sixteen, set out to find out. Along the way he hoped to teach himself a few chords too. His goal was to get good enough to play before a live audience in just six months--even if it threatened to drive his wife and family to the point of insanity. His trip becomes an odyssey: He chats with British folk legend Bert Jansch, ex-Smith's guitarist Johnny Marr, and reclusive folk guitar legend Davey Graham, as well as Sufjan Stevens, PJ Harvey, and Cat Power's chanteuse Chan Marshall. He travels to America and with a hurricane brewing visits Roger McGuinn from the Byrds. He travels to the Deep South, looking for the spirit of Robert Johnson, and drops in on T-Model Ford, an old bluesman living in Mississippi. Gloriously readable and highly amusing, Guitar Man is classic obsessional nonfiction for a nation of guitar freaks.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After hearing "Anji," a beautiful acoustic-guitar piece written and recorded by 1960s British folkie Davey Graham, Hodgkinson made it his goal to learn the instrument and perform in front of an audience within six months, kicking off a physical, mental and (arguably) transcendental journey that's eminently readable. A British thirty-something freelance journalist, Hodgkinson uses his industry connections to seek guitar lessons from the likes of Roger McGuinn, Johnny Marr (formerly of The Smiths), alt-rocker PJ Harvey and Graham himself. A less capable writer could have come off sounding narcissistic, but Hodgkinson's witty, self-effacing style goes down easy, inviting comparison to American pop-culture writer Chuck Klosterman. His penchant for digression is similarly Klostermanian: his touching and scathing observations during a road trip through America in search of the blues, his infuriating and heartbreaking encounter with aging cult hero Les Paul and his colorful portrayal of others along his journey make Hodgkinson's efforts to learn the guitar seem almost incidental. Particularly endearing are the straight-laced new dad and the wasted hippie who join Hodgkinson to make his Double Fantasy band. Pop culture fans will get almost as much out of this narrative as frustrated musicians; Hodgkinson's struggles with his labor of love are highly relatable, as is his conclusion that joy can, indeed, be found in the journey.
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Review

"General-interest collections will love it...A fine leisure reader's choice." -- Midwest Book Review, March 2007

"Music fans and anyone whose instrumental expertise stops at the kazoo will take inspiration from his tale." -- UTNE, June 2007

"Tells Hodgkinson's...frequently hilarious story, and it reads like a book-length Dave Barry newspaper column." -- Dirty Linen, June/July 2007

"This amiable and informative memoir will appeal to music lovers, guitar aficionados, and budding musician alike...Recommended." -- Library Journal, 12/15/06

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; 1st Da Capo Press Ed edition (December 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306815141
• ISBN-13: 978-0306815140
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #816,564 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring, actually, January 23, 2007

By 

DS7511 (Montclair, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guitar Man: A Six-String Odyssey, or, You Love that Guitar More than You Love Me (Paperback)

Though the premise sounds pat -- a bit like a book proposal: journalist with no musical training picks up guitar with the goal of playing a gig in six months, and then writing about it -- Guitar Man in fact blossoms into an enormously entertaining, and by the end, exciting story. Will Hodgkinson is a funny, charming, smart, ballsy, sympathetic guide to the world of guitar and guitar obsession. Plus he's got taste, too, and common sense, and his own peculiarly interesting (and peculiarly British, I suspect) ideas of what the guitar should be and how to go about learning to play it. For anyone who loves to play but isn't "professional," it's a fantastic lesson on why mistakes don't matter if your heart's in your fingers. And for American readers in particular, the book gives us the pleasure of encountering, in person or legend, Davey Graham, Bert Jansch, our own Jackson C. Frank, as well as understanding that maybe Eric Clapton isn't god after all. Now I need to learn to play "Anji" -- and only regret that I can't hop on over to Bert Jansch's flat for an impromptu lesson.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars General-interest collections will love it; music libraries will find it a fine leisure reader's choice., March 5, 2007

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guitar Man: A Six-String Odyssey, or, You Love that Guitar More than You Love Me (Paperback)

GUITAR MAN: A SIX-STRING ODYSSEY, OR, YOU LOVE THAT GUITAR MORE THAN YOU LOVE ME comes from a 34-year-old who decides to play guitar even though he's tone deaf and has no rhythm. His quest to become a musician at a later age involves instruction from friends and guitar 'greats' alike, in the process revealing much about the music world's finest figures from PJ Harvey to the eccentric old bluesman T. Model Ford. His odyssey is more than autobiography: it charts the evolution of guitar, methods of playing, and more and takes readers along on a rollicking journey through the music world in the process. General-interest collections will love it; music libraries will find it a fine leisure reader's choice.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspirational reading for us older wannabe guitarists, May 9, 2007

By 

Richard Reeve (West Chester, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Guitar Man: A Six-String Odyssey, or, You Love that Guitar More than You Love Me (Paperback)

As a 40+ wannabe guitarist I finally picked up an acoustic guitar and tried to learn after 20 years of 'thinking about it'. A few months in I literally stumbled across this book in a shop whilst looking for some music so that I could finally answer the question being asked of me, "When are you going to learn to play a real song on that thing?". This book had me glued from start to finish and I am now all fired up again! I am shamed to admit that I had never even heard of the great Davey Graham and many of the other characters that so shaped the guitar.

As earlier reviewers have said, the premise of the book sounds a little cheesey, and perhaps suggestive of an unlikely film script, 'untalented latecomer goes on quest and finds hidden guitar skills on the way', but this book is much more than that. It provides a superb potted history of the guitar from a UK/US blues-folk-rock perspective whilst the main protagonist is honing his new found skills. I found it inspiring. Sure, Will Hodgkinson isn't your average Mr Joe Public, he seems to have indirect connections to several key players, which may be helped by his journalist background, and maybe some of his 'memories' are a little odd - he could only have been 5 or 6 years old when Marc Bolan died so can he really recall his TV appearances? And the coincidence with watching "The Servant" just after a night out with Davey Graham, artistic license perhaps? But, these very minor points aside, to all you ageing wannabe guitarists out there - read it, dust off the old guitar and get strumming!

Now 'all' I need to do now is find out how to play 'Anji'!

P.S Whilst researching on the Web it is interesting to note that Davey Graham is on his uppers again - if this is partly through this book and/or Will's article in the Guardian then this is great for all guitar fans!