I am not a shopper. If it were up to me, I would have a selected menu of items delivered to my home periodically and be done with it. The delivery would include basic food, cleaning supplies, and even clothes. Oh, I can shop, and I am a frugal shopper, but it is a chore that I don’t enjoy. There is, however, an exception. Like a moth to a flame, I am attracted to pawn shops and flea markets.

Now let me be clear, in my opinion most of what I see in pawn shops and flea markets is just junk. I spend only a matter of moments breezing past slightly oily-smelling tools, used clothes (used for what, I don’t know), and trinkets that people bought for reasons I can never fathom. Then there are the musical instruments, and each of these calls to me with its own voice.

It seems like one whole section of most pawn shops is the home for abandoned guitars. There will usually be a few relatively new Asian mock-ups that I don’t bother to investigate, but there are also guitars with familiar names that softly call from their places against the wall – Ibanez, Alvarez, Silvertone, Gibson, Epiphone, Yamaha, Ovation, Applause, Sigma, and the ubiquitous solid-body Fenders. Each one says, “You haven’t tried me yet…you haven’t heard me sing….”

I inspect every price tag, and if I have time I ask to play one or more. Once in my arms, some guitars cry like a baby, some squawk like a duck, and a few croon in seductive tones. In nearly a hundred percent of these situations, I make a few mental notes, politely hang the guitar back on its rack, and move on to other obligations of the day.

Once in a while, though, I will take one home. Once I brought home an Ovation Applause acoustic guitar that had only three strings. I made the mistake of playing the fire out of those three strings, and the pawn shop owner made me a deal. The guitar now hangs on my wall, and I occasionally use it with a slide to play a few bluesy numbers. I courted another guitar over a period of a year or more. It was a homemade, wormy chestnut electric guitar, built in the style of a Les Paul. Wormy chestnut is a very dense wood, and despite the small size of the guitar, it was very heavy. I’m not really an electric-guitar player, but I would take it down and play it silently for about an hour at a time without plugging it in. I could hear its very soft voice whispering sweet melodies to me. One day I plugged it in, played it at a reasonable volume, and bought it. Price tag – $100. I don’t know if I’ll ever sell that guitar, but if I do I will get much more than $100 for it, I’ll bet.

Over the years, I’ve visited countless pawn shops and flea markets. In all that time, I have probably bought no more than a half-a-dozen instruments. But if you come and see Sound Traveler play, you might wonder where that sweet-sounding $50 concertina came from, or you could ask where you could get a xylophone like ours. Or you might hear the strains of a slightly unique electric guitar on an old recording we made. Each of those instruments is the product of a continuous treasure hunt through pawn shops and flea markets that we pass through along the path of our Song Travelin’. – Bob Tatum

Appropriately, Sound Traveler will be playing at the grounds of the Brevard County’s Super Flea and Farmer’s Market on this coming Sunday to help tornado victims in Alabama. Come on out and support this worthy cause and hear some great music at the same time! If you can’t wait that long, and I hope you can’t, also come hear us tonight at Writer’s Night at Nolan’s Irish Pub.

To tell us your own stories and share your own treasures, click on the title of the post, scroll down, and let us see it.

3 Comments to “SongTravelin’: 05.19.11– Treasures Amid the Rubble”

• May 19, 2011 at 10:47 am
  Art says:

  Thinking about musicians and instruments, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any musician worth the time to listen to play a new instrument. I guess now I know why.
• May 19, 2011 at 11:31 am
  Bob says:

  That is an interesting observation, and I share it. I guess Willie Nelson’s guitar takes the prize in that category. How does that guitar still produce those sweet, sweet sounds? I guess the player and the instrument combine to produce that magic.
• May 20, 2011 at 4:53 pm
  Patty says:

  That $50 we spent on “Squishy” the concertina (yes, some – but not all – of my instruments are named) was quite possibly the best $50 we’ve ever spent! I don’t know why, as it was a total impulse buy, but it did speak to me. I just had to have it, and I played it all the way home (several hours) that day.

  The best $500 my parents ever spent was on my Silver Bach Strad trumpet. It’s still a lot of money, but back in 1980 it was a fortune to pay for a musical instrument. I will always be grateful to my parents for taking a chance on me and making that sacrifice. And of course, today you couldn’t touch an instrument like that for $500. Just last night, a fellow trumpet player was admiring my Strad. He’s a senior citizen by now, I guess, but I wouldn’t trade him for any other horn. Sorry, Bob…that one didn’t come from the pawn shop, but my first horn did – a hand-me-down from my uncle. What a beauty…not really…but that’s another story for another time.