Van Carney, Photo Credit: Jake Thomas
I remember guitar playing. My father and I were sitting by the fireplace in the basement of the old family farm. The ceiling and walls were dark, a big stone fireplace sat in the middle of the wall where there was a door leading out to the sloping hillside. The faint smell of wood smoke hung in the air always, like a smokehouse on a warm day. He sat in a chair and I was on the ground, legs splayed out, I was probably three or four years old. Looking up, I could see the ceiling against the teal of his collared shirt and black hair pushed back, a cigarette hanging limply from his mouth. In the corner sat a galvanized gutbucket he had turned into a stand-up bass using rope and a broom handle.
He was strumming a spruce topped Yamaha he had bought from a hardware store before going to college. It had hung in the window of the store for long enough without being moved that half of the guitar had faded in the sunlight. When the store's manager cut the price in half my dad bought it. Now we sat in the basement, while he picked away on a wandering, inspired version of Johnny B. Goode. I stared in amazement at how the strings could work like they did, producing all these incredible, vibrating sounds and feelings. Two hands working in unison, working on this weird piece of wood, this strange unwieldy box could have such an intoxicating effect. I sat motionless and mesmerized. I wanted to know how to do this; I needed to learn how this was happening.
My mother was in the next room, doing something in the kitchen. Dishes clinked and I could hear the heavy black plastic rotary phone being moved around. Cigarette smoke drifted in slowly, mixing with the wispy blue smoke of my father’s. I could smell the coffee she had just made, semi-sweet smelling and pungent. She called to my father and he tapped his cigarette into the ashtray on the table, set the guitar down and went into the kitchen.
Left alone in the room, I first looked at the guitar and then out the glass door that showed the hillside sloping into the gentle wooded rise on the other side of the creek. I looked back at the guitar. Slowly I stood up and touched the guitar. I felt the slick top and the gravely, tight big string. The sharp thin strings were easier to pluck, so I plucked a few times. The light was dim in the basement; the only source was from the glass door. The fret board looked like some exotic game and made no sense. I lifted the neck slowly and examined the tuners. Could these be played too? They certainly seemed like they could. They moved wonderfully, back and forth, back and forth, almost effortlessly. I tested them all. They all did. I slowly climbed into the chair and laid the guitar across my lap. I could mash the strings fairly easily with my palm but that made no sound. I carefully plucked a few and THERE!! SOUND!!! I couldn't reach the tuners any more, but forget about that, I figured I would narrow my focus and concentrate on the strings. Somewhere in the kitchen I could hear the sink running and the faint voices of my parents talking about when my grandparents were arriving. I heard a lighter strike and a thin exhale.
I looked at the strings again and this time tried one string in succession at a time, what a fantastic feeling! It sounded nothing like what my father was playing, but it felt so good, I felt so alive! Not too loudly, I made a pattern, one two, one two, one two, one two, one two, followed by a bit of silence and then a strum! Somewhere I knew that what I was doing wasn't what I thought I was doing, but that didn't matter. I kept going. Soon I had worked myself into a fury of sorts, thrashing around in the chair, banging on the strings. This was it! This was it! I thought. I would have to practice, but I knew I could play Johnny B. Goode. But that didn't matter. All that mattered was that feeling. That soaring feeling, rising above the cigarette smoke, through the ceiling and roof and into the sky, like a wild bat woken by dusk.