Musings

In typical Garrett style, he could have done it the easy way, but chose to do it the right way. He made a new replacement neck for the mandolin, used the original fingerboard and headstock cap…

This is the grave of Moses Dickerson the First. He’s my great-grandfather eight generations back. Moses Dickerson fought in the Revolutionary War so that we wouldn’t have to answer to a king.

Had a fun trip yesterday to meet Merlene Travis at Norman’s Rare Guitars to help shed some backstory on a guitar owned by her father, Merle Travis.

If you’re not in Los Angeles, and you’re watching the news somewhere else in the USA (or overseas), let me clarify a few things about what you’re seeing.

Eventually I realized that all my previous prejudices against music from the 1970s were incorrect; there was great music in the 1970s and bad music in the 1970s, and Sly Stone was absolutely the turning point in that personal realization.

The Whippersnappers and I recently recorded a batch of new hot-rod-themed songs for an upcoming EP, and yesterday we shot a video for a song I wrote called “Ridin’ with the Devil (Goin’ Fast as I Can Go).”

In 2009, I had the honor of meeting and interviewing Letritia Kandle, the pioneering female steel guitarist from Chicago who invented the “Grand Letar.”

This holiday weekend, I took advantage of the brief time off to visit record lathe gurus Len and Jacob Horowitz to get my new Grampian/Gotham mono cutting head and amplifier setup going.

I may not be a wealthy man, but I am rich in autographed hillbilly photos!

I don’t think about Arkansas that much, but when I do, I remember my two heroes from Newport, Arkansas: Sonny Burgess and Billy Lee Riley.