John Engel, Uncommon Sound: the left-handed guitar players that changed music (Left Field Ventures, 2007)
Many years ago, when I was shopping for my first decent guitar (that is, once the Sears guitar my Mom had bought me from the catalogue was not enough), I went to a local music store with a friend. I had to take a friend because I played left-handed. My guitar was turned 'round, the strings were still bass E at the top and high E at the bottom, so I couldn't play more than a chord or two on a regularly strung guitar. And in 1970 guitar stores didn't keep any left-handed guitars in stock. Oh, you could order them, from some manufacturers, but not all. Anyway . . . John (my friend) tried out the Aria, and then the Yamaha, for playability and volume, sound and action. As John played, the salesman said to me in a squeaky, annoyingly condescending voice, "Why don't you just learn to play the right way? After all . . . you ever seen a left-handed piano?"
It wasn't just guitars. In school the teachers tried to change the way I wrote (I had a backwards tilt to my letter if I tried to keep my hand from dragging across the ink on the page), scissors were seriously right-hand friendly, pencil sharpeners were attached to the wall wrong way round . . . you name it, I was inconvenienced! But when I saw Jimi Hendrix playing his Strat inverted, or Paul McCartney -- A BEATLE, for goodness sake -- proudly southpaw? I wasn't about to change because some old coot at Waddington's said so! I bought the Yamaha FG180, had the strings turned over, a second pickguard cut and glued on and I never looked back. I was one of a small club. And proud to be a member.
This prelude is just to set the scene for one of the most wonderful books I have ever read. Uncommon Sound is a two-volume, slipcased set weighing in at nearly 20 pounds. It shipped in two cardboard boxes, and bubblewrap to protect the 900 pages of photographs, biographies, interviews and history of left-handed guitar playing. History? You bet. You'll discover that, indeed, there have been left-handed pianos! And that left-handed guitarists are mainly self-taught because it's harder for the limited right-hander to teach them. Interviews? With McCartney, Coco Montoya, Dan Seals, Eric Bogle, Dick Dale, Cesar Rosas and more; southpaws from across the spectrum of styles (would you call that the 'plectrum spectrum'?). Photos of players, album covers, advertising, and guitars. Pages and pages of beautiful guitars. And every one of them left-handed.
The first volume is dedicated to players from rock and pop, reggae, punk and metal. I love the bound-in bookmark with its alphabetical index of each player, and where you can find him/her. Volume two covers jazz, folk, blues, country, R&B and world music and both books feature dozens of entries. And some surprises. Did you know that Mark Knopfler was a southpaw? He plays righty. Why? Was it a run in with a guitar salesman? He says, "I write and play tennis left-handed. I always held my tennis racket for an imitation guitar. One day I was playing guitar happily on my tennis racket and my older sister turned it around in my hands and said, 'You've got to hold it this way.' But I didn't like it." Eventually it was violin lessons that forced him to play right-handed.
The articles are fascinating, and you can spend hours just browsing through one book or the other, jumping from here to there, just enjoying the pictures. But the stories are more than simply reprints of old tales told in Guitar Player magazine. Even the McCartney interview seems fresh, as it focuses on creativity. He describes the songwriting process, "Something happens. It's an amazing mantra. I do believe in magic. In music as well, I find [that] the paradox, something you didn't expect to work, is what works. It is like painting a dream." Wrap all these interviews and biographies in a wealth of photographs, album covers, ads and memorabilia, and you can hardly put Uncommon Sound down.
The truth is, you can hardly pick it up! The books are heavy. You slide each volume gingerly out of the slipcase, careful not to tip it too far. You select the volume you want to peruse, and heft it onto the coffee table. Opening the book, you are confronted with colour and images, words and guitars. Lots of guitars! I found that reading while perched on the edge of a chair, leaning over the coffee table, was the best way to do it. You certainly won't be holding these tomes up reading in bed. But the beauty of them is that you want to be alert when you're reading, there's just so much here.
The blurb on the jacket reads, "What is it about left-handed guitar players? Is there some magic connection between Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, Danny Gatton and Dick Dale? What do they have in common? Stylistically practically nothing. But already holding their guitar the 'wrong' way, they epitomize the unbridled non-conformist spirit of popular music." And that's it, I think. Listen to the list of just a few on the innovators included here: Elizabeth Cotten, Sylvia Tyson, Albert King, Otis Rush, Tony Kaye, Bobby Womack, "Bla" Pahinui, Tony Iommi and "Ollie" Halsall. Maybe not all as famous as Jimi or Sir Paul, but each one an innovator in folk, blues, jazz, R&B, Hawaiian, metal, and rock. And that just scratches the surface.
The book is fairly pricey (over $300) but Christmas is coming. Have a look at the web site to see what it looks like. Included is a CD featuring 20 of the musicians from the book. At over 900 pages and 2500 pictures, it's the perfect gift for the local southpaw pickers and strummers in your neighborhood. But you don't have to be left-handed to enjoy it. There's such a treasure trove of information and image that anyone with a heart for guitar will be thrilled to find this under the tree. Just don't drop it on your toes!
