Special Strings

A guy and his guitar...it's a beautiful thing 

It's the middle of the week and time for Whatever Wednesday. The spotlight will be on guitarists and some insight into the instruments that made them famous.

For instance, B.B. King names his guitars "Lucille" and you may have known that but do you know why?  Well, it turns

out that back in 1949 there was bar fight that caused a fire that sadly took the life of two people and during that same fire, B.B. King rushed into the burning bar to rescue his guitar.  The next day he found out the fight that started the series of events was over a woman named Lucille and he's given his guitars that name ever since to remind him never to be that foolhardy to run into a burning building again!

I love the unique sound of Red Special

Queen's Brian May has one of the most distinctive sounding guitars, probably because she (his choice of "gender") was hand-crafted by May and his Dad  partly from a 100 year old oak fireplace mantel.  Brian's Dad wanted to christen her the Brian May Special but a then 16 year old May didn't care for the idea.  However, down the road when asked in radio interview about her name, Red Special just popped out and the name stuck.

An appropriate name for Willie's guitar

Willie Nelson succinctly explains his guitars name stating, "Roy Rogers had a horse named Trigger.  I figured, 'This is my horse!'"  Makes perfect sense to me!

Three different musicians from three very different musical genres playing three unique sounding instruments, yet all are unified by the fact that they all named their special guitars.  The classic question "What's in a name?" can be answered here by saying it's the love the guitarist has for his guitar to the extent that "it" becomes a "Lucille", a "Red Special" and a "Trigger".  :)