Roger Jones called me up one night a couple of weeks ago and he said, “I’ve got a twelve string guild I’ve been working on that I don’t know what to do with. Would you like it?” And since I had a few square feet of floor space left that didn’t have a guitar resting on it, I said sure, and I went over to his place, into the space where he reconditions his “reborn guitars”.
Now Roger is an interesting chap, kind of a walking fireplug with hair past his shoulders and a BIG white cowboy hat. He works outdoors as a naturalist of some sort tending to wildflowers, frogs, and little furry creatures and doing things that are important and really matter, though I don’t much know the details. However, it’s the other part of his life that this column is about.
Roger is a fellow with a big drive and a bigger heart, full of big ideas and love for his fellow man. He loves bluegrass, and gospel, stringed instruments and pickin’ and singing. Roger started collecting and reconditioning guitars some time ago. He’d pick them up at yard sales and pawn shops or something. He works on them fixing the pearling, the pickguards, unwarping the necks, fixing the frets and all the other things you find when going through old guitars, and you always know if he worked on one, because he’d put a little cross medallion somewhere prominent on the guitars body or headstock.
Now Roger never meant to keep all these guitars (and mandolins, fiddles, banjos and such). He had limited space, and like I said, love for his fellow man. So he started giving these guitars to missionary’s who were going to other countries, and he’d tell them to take the guitar to wherever they were going, and to play it while they were there, and to leave it in whatever place they had ministered at. Then, he told them to come and see him when they got home, and he’d give them another guitar.
Well that was pretty fine thing for a fellow to do, but he kept getting more and more instruments, so he started giving them to kids that expressed interest and started fixing electrics so they could play loud enough to drown out adolescence, and when he ran out of kids, he just looked for folks in need, including my nephew Troy who owned a guitar that played like a tree trunk and sounded like one as well.
A lot of people know Roger and continually drop off instruments to him, which he dutifully fixes. I found an autoharp for five dollars in a garage sale that hadn’t been playable since Noah got off of the Ark. I gave it to him. Now some nice lady somewhere is tormenting the neighbors with the dulcet sounds of an old black autoharp, bringing joy to her heart, and irritation to her gold fish.
I don’t know….Some folks are just born good. Roger would tell you it ain’t him, it’s the Good Lord above. All I know is that there is a lot more music in this here world because of Roger and his long suffering wife Rhonda, and a lot of it is bluegrass, and a lot of it is gospel. Roger also runs a roots gospel jam. Pickin’ and singing like a southern Baptist church. Somebody making a difference, one guitar at a time.
Check him out on facebook at Reborn guitars.
