BETWEEN THE STRINGS | DON MCLEAN
The guitar certainly took me out of my comfort zone . As a kid , I had never really been away from home . I wasn ’ t a terribly adventurous person — I didn ’ t need to see the world . I liked my room , and that was where I played my guitar . In my senior year at Iona Catholic High School , though , I decided it was time to step out . At that time , only a few of my friends knew that I played and sang — I had been keeping that under wraps — when I decided to enter the school talent contest . And the experience was right out of a Ron Howard movie . The entire student body was there in the auditorium , and I got up in front of those people and I played .
By then , I had a few things under my fingers . I played a stinging arrangement of Josh White ’ s Well , Well , Well in a dropped D tuning , a banjo breakdown , and a couple of tunes that I had written . And the place went absolutely crazy . The kids hollered and cheered and threw things into the air . It was bedlam ! And that ’ s when my relationship with the guitar , which had been under wraps for all those years , just exploded . The next thing I knew , I was being managed by Howard Levanthal , who worked with the Weavers . I was only seventeen , and he had me out playing clubs in the Village , and with Pete Seeger on a sailing sloop . It was amazing . And the guitar had brought me there . Before I knew it , I was on a plane , and going someplace else with my guitar . I went and I went and I went . And I ’ m still going !
That D-28 was my constant companion throughout those years . But sadly , our association came to an end . In the summer of 1969 , I was performing with Pete Seeger at the Newport Folk Festival . I had left the guitar backstage for a moment , and someone , seizing that moment , quietly walked away with it . Needless to say , it was a
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| FALL 2023