JOHN RENBOURN | BETWEEN THE STRINGS sweet treble that only old Martins seem to have . Duck played it , too . “ Well ,” he said , “ that blows the myth that Dreadnoughts are no good for fingerstyle .” We delved a little further . The case contained the usual bits and bobs , right down to a graded nail maintenance kit . But everything seemed strangely unused , and somehow a little too perfect . Right down at the bottom of the case was a scrap of torn paper , the last thing in there . There was writing on it . I picked it out and read it . “ This is a beautiful instrument . But it was not meant for me . I have tried and I have failed . Please take it and make music with it . Share it with your friends and ask them to do the same . Goodbye .”
Nobody spoke for quite a while , then a quiet voice offered , “ We ’ d better go past the bridge and look in the river . Sounds like he ’ s gone and jumped in .” That just about summed it up for all of us . It really did have that feel about it . Well , I don ’ t think we got as far as searching the waterfront , but we did leave with the beautiful guitar , and we did pretty much what the note asked us to do . I have played it , Duck has played it , and plenty of our friends have , too . Right now , it has a home in a little lock house on the river not far from Oxford . But of course , that isn ’ t its real home . Everyone who has made music on it knows the story and understands . So , old Wildman , if you are out there and you happen to read this , please know that we all think of it as your guitar . You may feel like playing it again . We hope you do . Just give a shout and you ’ ll have it back . Of course , some sort of verification ceremony will be in order . That will have to be conducted by Lord Baker , who speaks the language like a native .
And that ’ s the story so far . I should add that before we left Germany , Duck and I went into Peter Finger ’ s studio in Osnabruck to record a few things together . I played one solo arrangement on the beautiful guitar . The piece I chose was Schumann ’ s Im Wunderschonen Montat Mai .
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