GEIB CASE REVIEW
She was right to warn me. There is something about lifting the lid on a fine guitar case and breathing it in that rewards you. Or arrests you entirely. Jerry Douglas once told me about an old Cyclops-style Dobro that had belonged to Sonny Boy Williamson. When the case was opened for the first time, a powerful rush of whiskey fumes poured out, as if decades had somehow been trapped inside. The guitar had changed hands, the years had passed, but the smell remained. Jerry said he could never record with it in a small sound booth because the fumes became overwhelming. The guitar gets the attention; the case holds everything else.
I went into my conversation with Tom Dougherty, founder of TKL and Cedar Creek Cases, thinking of cases as an afterthought. I said as much to him early on but came out the other side having substantially revised that view. I had done some homework before we spoke and found myself going down what I can only describe as a wonderful rabbit hole of history and tradition. Who knew this could be so cool?
Some of the revision came from Dougherty himself, who thinks about cases the way a good luthier thinks about wood: with genuine curiosity, a long memory, and a refusal to accept the expedient answer. And some of it came from learning the full story of Geib, the legendary case company that brings us here today.
COLLECTIBLE GUITAR | 145