Down To His Last Guitar

Bill Mallonee is one of my all time favorite song writers. He's the epitome of everything everyone says about a lot of the greats. Great stories, amazing with words, heart on the sleeve. I've seen him perform probably ten times over the years, and he has always had something new to wow me with. It has been quite a while since I have seen him. He hasn't made it anywhere close to me in a couple of years, and I hadn't given him much attention in my listening for a while. About a month and a half ago, I started a rediscovery of sorts with his music. I was again wowed by how good the songs were. I was floored by Judas Skin just like the first time I had ever heard it. He is able to convey hope, love, and pain in song better than anyone else I have ever heard. I decided to try to catch up a bit with what he was up to.

I was a bit disappointed to find that things hadn't been going so well for him. So many of the amazing songs of love were about his wife Brenda. He wrote songs that I'm sure made her blush. His songs were honest and fearless. There was always "Another song for Brenda, Another tune for Josh and Joe, Another postcard from the highway." Here was a guy who was out on the road a lot, but you could tell he loved his family. Sometime over the past couple of years, Bill and Brenda split up, and not too long after, Bill married another woman. Knowing that makes it a bit hard to go back and listen to some of the songs. It makes you a bit sad for everyone involved. I don't know the story, nor do I feel like I should, but it certainly changes the way you listen.

He isn't playing as many shows as he used to. From some post of his I read on his mailing list, It doesn't sound like it is necessarily by choice. About three years ago, I saw him play his heart out in front of twenty people in a storefront in Huntsville, and then two months later, play it out again in front of several thousand in a field in Illinois. He didn't seem to care how big the audience was, he just seemed to love being out on the road sharing what he was good at. Now he is struggling with no booking agent and having to sell equipment to pay the rent. He was trying to sell a beautiful Rickenbacker that I saw him use a couple of times. Once it was sold, this amazing songwriter would be left with one playable guitar as his last instrument.

The tools of my livelihood are not as concrete as a guitar, but I like the analogy. Wherever I go, they'll always give me a computer to bang away on. I don't have to prepare what I do to go to work and make a living. I go, sit down, code away, then come home and don't have to worry about it. I complain about it sometimes, and wish that life was more exciting, but this is what God has for me right now. My hope for this week is that I can go into it with a less distracted mind. There is always something going on to keep me unfocused on whatever it is I would like to be focused on at the time, be it work, relationships, or just life in general, but at least I am not down to my last guitar.

If you are interested in Bill Mallonee, click on the link to the side of my blog. If you have heard him before, give him another chance. He has the album Summershine available for a free download at www.volsounds.com. It isn't necessarily representative of everything else he has ever done, but I still love it. If you like what you hear, buy something from him.