[mplpost] =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20first=20Guitars=20=96=20from=20Ron=20Block?=

[Bluegrasscoot@aol.com]

The following message is from Ron Block who plays banjo and guitar with 
Alison Krauss and Union Station. In addition to recording with AKUS, and the 
Cox Family, Ron recently released his own project, Faraway Land, on Rounder 
Records.

I had his permission to publish this in the January issue of the Ontario 
Bluegrass Newsletter.

<<From 1979-1985 I worked at my Dad's music store in southern California, a 
place <<called Hogan's Music; it was my first and last real day job. We 
didn't get a lot of <<used Martins coming through; it was mostly a 
rock-and-roll shop (those vintage <<Strats, Teles, Les Pauls, SGs, etc? In 
six years I saw more than I can even count, <<and could have bought any of 
them for next to nothing -- but back then I was way <<too into traditional 
bluegrass to buy any, a choice I bemoan today).  
<<One day in 1981 Hogan's bought a beat up '69 Martin D-18 from a 
down-and-outer <<for 300 bucks. I snagged it and told my Dad I wanted to buy 
it.  He sold it to me for <<cost.  
<<1981 was when I was getting heavily into traditional bluegrass.  George 
Shuffler, Bill <<Napier, Larry Sparks, Clarence White -- I transcribed and 
learned many of their solos <<on that '69 D-18.  
<<It's the guitar that heard me arguing with my parents about playing music 
for a <<living, heard me quote Matthew 6 to them as a justification for 
living without fear -- <<"Look at the birds; they don't sow or reap or gather 
into barns, yet your heavenly <<Father feeds them. Aren't you much more 
valuable than they are?"  
<<It's the only guitar I owned from 1981 until 1992. I played it daily, 
usually for hours <<upon hours.  Where I went it went. 
<<It's been played, loved, cussed, hated, tripped over, dropped, crunched, 
dinged, <<mashed, and slammed in its case. It's the guitar I had at South 
Plains College. I used  <<it in my first local bands, in Weary Hearts, the 
Lynn Morris band, and in AKUS. It <<played rhythm and lead on much of 
Everytime You Say Goodbye, Now That I've Found <<You, Everybody's Reaching 
Out For Someone (Cox Family), and on most of the other <<Alison, AKUS, and 
Cox Family records.  
<<It was at my wedding and nearly all the major events of my life. It came 
with me to <<Nashville in 1990. I've had it for over half of my 37 years, and 
right now it sits  <<behind me on a stand in my downstairs studio.  
<<It hears my feelings and speaks them out loud; it accepts and resonates my 
pain, <<my joys, my love, my anger, my fears, my faith, and puts those 
emotions out in <<sound. 
<<It looks a lot like my soul.  
<<If I had to sell everything I owned I'd sell it all but that guitar.
            Ron Block>>

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