Chris Carter
Hey Everybody. My name is Chris Carter. This is Beyond the Stage. I’m the executive director of Livermore Valley Arts, the Bankhead Theater. We’re talking about a performance coming up at The Bankhead on May 15th that we’re very excited about.
Ruth Egherman
March 15th.
Chris Carter
Excuse me, I knew it was an M. This is why we have a Ruth here. But on March 15th at 7:30, it’s a Wednesday, it’s The George Bowen Master Guitar Summit in support of the ALS Cure Project.
Chris Carter
And I’m really lucky to have a few special guests with us today. To my left is Ruth Egherman, who’s our Marketing Director.
Ruth Egherman
Hi there.
Chris Carter
We’ve been working feverishly on getting the word out about this, this really cool concert, and then across from me is George Bowen, luthier and musician. And if you don’t know what a luthier is, it’s a guitar builder constructor, an artist that makes guitars. And then Mike Piscotty, who’s the founder of the ALS Cure Project. And this event is going to be very cool.
Chris Carter
It came together kind of quickly. So at first I wanted to maybe just start with that and just talk about how we got this going. So I’ll just tell you my story really quickly is that I saw Karla Brown, the mayor of Pleasanton, and she was at an event or something at The Bankhead, and she said, Do you know George Bowen?
Chris Carter
And I said, I’ve heard his name, but I don’t know him because I’m a guitar guy. I know who he is, but I’ve never met him. And so she told me a little bit about what was going on and said there might be an opportunity to do a concert at The Bankhead with some of these guitarists. And I said, Well, let’s let’s figure it out.
Chris Carter
And so she arranged for a meeting with the three of us, but I’m not quite sure how she knows the two of you so well. Tell me a little bit about your side of the story of how this all came to be.
Mike Piscotty
And go ahead.
George Bowen
Oh, well, I’m George Bowen. Thank you for for having the concert and doing this for the community and for those afflicted pals we call ourselves. I’ll get it out, out front that I was diagnosed with ALS. And so I’m especially grateful for Mike and what what he’s doing and he’ll get into that, but I’ve been a guitar player since the beginning of my memory, really.
George Bowen
So in my thirties, probably, no, you know, I picked up a guitar when I was seven or eight and played the guitar and, and in my teen years I can remember probably 15 or 16 that, that might date myself. I can remember hearing the Simon and Garfunkel song, “The Boxer” played on the air for the first time, and the opening guitar passage to that has such an impact on me that it it made me want to figure out how I thought it was Paul Simon.
George Bowen
It wasn’t Paul Simon. It was a guy by the name of Fred Carter Jr. But I, that got me started really seriously pursuing the guitar. And I did that for many years, formed a band. In those years we performed, I was living in San Diego, performed the venues kept getting bigger, audiences kept getting bigger. And and then we thought we were done with the music business and went into a recording studio to record a few original songs that we had done and, and unbeknownst to my, it was a Bowen and Richards was the band.
George Bowen
So unbeknownst to Richards and me, the engineer took the some of our tapes to a friend of his who was president of Record Company in L.A. And he gave we got a record deal out of it, which was, you know, kind of everybody’s
Chris Carter
Right.
George Bowen
If if you pick a guitar, you know, that’s your dream.
Chris Carter
Yeah, yeah.
George Bowen
So roll forward a few years.
George Bowen
And then we moved to Los Angeles, had some success with the first album, some Billboard magazine, like just a lot, and wrote some great reviews. And we made the charts and you start getting fan mail and you know, you think, you know, maybe, maybe we’re going somewhere here and but where we were, where we were going was as the well I mean did some studio musician work as well and continue practicing the guitar like fury and and the lifestyle in Los Angeles wasn’t the lifestyle for me.
George Bowen
Every recording event, every studio gig, you know, had a drugs involved. And I mean, these are the top players. I won’t mention any names, but the top players and and I was I was delighted to be in their company and and had that feeling like I don’t really belong here with with musicians like these. But I didn’t I was I’m a more conservative person that just, you know, wanted a family didn’t want to be on the road and and didn’t want that influence.
George Bowen
So.
Chris Carter
Are you from the Bay Area originally? Is this where you grew up out here?
George Bowen
I was born in Oakland.
Chris Carter
Oakland. Okay.
George Bowen
But but moved to San Diego when I was about four or five. So I have very few memories of my early years in the Bay Area. But we moved up here, so I left the music business, went out and got a day job and that day job turned out to be a good career. And late in that career I was fortunate, fortunate enough to be able to retire early and and I continued playing, but I became curious about building guitars and had developed some friendships with some great guitar builders and started building guitars about 13, 14 years ago and more recently, some professional guitar players actually two who are in the show play Bowen guitars and it there’s so many great guitars out there. It kind of amazes me that, that, that my guitars are their choice of guitars and so if you come to the show, you’re going to see a couple of George Bowen guitars on stage. And it’s really it’s a about the time I was diagnosed technically, I was diagnosed January 10th, but I think we really knew in October.
George Bowen
And I–Carlos, a good friend, Karla Brown’s good friend, I’ve known her for many years and I mentioned to her and I think and and both of these guitar players said, well, we’d love to do a concert for you. So I just mentioned that to Carla. And I think really she–some magic happened behind the curtain with with her connecting with you.
George Bowen
And she had just read the Pleasanton Weekly with your article in it, Mike, and so I’ll maybe turn it over at that point at this point. And thats it.
Chris Carter
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And then so Mike, did Carla reach out to you then?
Mike Piscotty
There I was drive and driving home to Pleasanton in the car and I got a call from Carla and she said, Hey, there’s this fine gentleman, George, from Pleasanton. And he has ALS and he’s a guitar maker. And um interested in maybe putting on a concert. I think she may have already talked to you Chris. And, boy, we just just seemed like the perfect thing to do.
Mike Piscotty
Right. And we got together and started hashing it out and just amazed with George and his his friends that, you know, really want to come here and celebrate and put this this show on. It’s a it’s fabulous. You know, I’m grateful to be around all of you guys and, you know, really, really lifts us up as we’re, you know, doing this work, you know, to to get this type of support.
Mike Piscotty
And I’m I’m just so proud and grateful of this courageous guy next to me here, because that’s this is not a not an easy thing to do is put yourself out there in the limelight with this disease. And just so I’m proud and grateful to know you my friend.
George Bowen
Thank you. Yeah.
Chris Carter
And tell me more about the ALS Cure project and how this got started and what your goals are and what you’re trying to do with the funding.
Mike Piscotty
Yeah, you know. Thanks, Chris. So, you know, my I come in to the ALS community as a cal So George had mentioned pal, so in the in the business, a person with ALS is a pals and a caregiver, for some with ALS as a cals. And so I was a cals for my wife, Gretchen, who got ALS in 2016.
Mike Piscotty
She started experiencing drop foot and after a number of different tests and it takes many, many months to rule everything else out. And when when you kind of get to the end, then what you have is, is ALS, when you have none of the other neurological diseases that they’re testing you for. So she was again diagnosed, I think in 2016.
Mike Piscotty
She passed in May of 2018 and relatively quick progression. Most people are kind of averages 3 to 5 years expectancy after diagnosis. And, you know, we shepherd her through that. Along the way, we had some nice support. We had, you know, she was very brave and courageous like like George here. And we had ESPN came in and did a story on us because my older boy, Stephen, who played for the A’s and Cardinals and was involved with the big trade from the Cardinals to the A’s so that he could shepherd Gretchen in her last, you know, a few months.
Mike Piscotty
And I’d always ask Gretchen, you know, are you okay? You know, if with, you know cameras coming in because she had all the breathing devices and everything on and it wasn’t her best light and she always said, yeah, you know, as long as nobody else has to suffer my fate, you know, bring them on. So we did. And after she passed, you know, it was a promise that we had made to her to to to try to come up with the cure for A.L.S..
Mike Piscotty
And that was really what kind of spawned us to look into how could we help in this field?
Chris Carter
So my wife knew your wife. I think I might have told you this. So she went to boot camp,
Mike Piscotty
Oh.
Chris Carter
every morning. And your wife was at the same exercise class. And so I remember my wife telling me the story of your wife as she was going through all this, and we were following that. And we did follow the news when your son was able to come out here.
Chris Carter
We thought that was really great, that the baseball teams and the baseball gods helped to pick it out and work out.
Mike Piscotty
Good trade for the teams and good trade to our family.
Chris Carter
Too. Yeah. So and then what are you raising money for? For research or for, you know, for care? What are what’s kind of the goals?
Mike Piscotty
Chris, when we started out, you know, our goal was to get to a cure in some manner. And we didn’t quite know where we’re we’re headed. We started learning things about the disease more that, you know, it’s a rare disease that, you know, 6000 people in the US get diagnosed every year, but 6000 passed, but 18,000 people have it.
Mike Piscotty
And so it’s a lot smaller number than the number that have cancer, maybe 2 million or so. Right. And so there’s some challenges in that people at times can be maybe a little more philanthropic for diseases that, you know, touched them personally. So just by the fact of less numbers, it’s a little bit more challenging to raise money in there, learn that also learned that there wasn’t a test ALS.
Mike Piscotty
There is no there isn’t something I can take from your body of blood or whatnot and say, oh, you have too little of this or too much of this. Therefore you have ALS. There’s there’s no tests. We don’t know why it starts. We don’t know why it progresses. We don’t have any tests. And it turns out the the issue with that is that it’s very difficult for drug companies to create therapies when there’s no target.
Mike Piscotty
All right. So imagine the COVID ball, which you’ve all just can imagine now, right? Well, after that, got identified, we started having vaccines. We don’t have the COVID ball for ALS. And so our charity, what we do, we’re pretty simple. We’re all volunteers. We have eight wonderful board members that participate gratis. And I have four doctors that do the same.
Mike Piscotty
And, you know, we raise funds and then we identify and sponsor international research collaborations. And today we’ve done about 1.3 million in that work thus far.
Chris Carter
Oh, that’s great.
Ruth Egherman
Yeah, that’s amazing.
Chris Carter
Ruth, do you have anything you wanted to ask?
Ruth Egherman
I well, you were talking about there’s no test for it, and I was just kind of curious if there’s a genetic marker for it. And obviously, I mean, I don’t know if there is and if it is has anything to do with like heredity or if it’s hereditary or anything like that. I don’t have anybody in my family, but it has touched my life with with other friends and friends that are as close as family.
Mike Piscotty
It’s a great question. So of the population that have ALS, less than 10% have a form of ALS that’s known as genetic. And it’s a there are certain, ALS genes that have been identified, SOD1, C9ORF, a few others have been identified. That accounts for about 10% of the population. In those cases, when you have familial because it’s genetics, you have that 50/50 chance of passing that gene on to your siblings.
Mike Piscotty
Right. I mean, to your kids. And, you know, I’ve known some families here in the Bay Area that have lost six family members to that disease. And it’s it’s it’s tough to take a one person through. And, you know, you can imagine that. So unfortunately now that means that 90% of the ALS cases are what they call sporadic ALS.
Mike Piscotty
And that just means we don’t know why it started. Right. And so and that’s the knowledge about where we sit really right now. And so our research is trying to identify those targets. We’re trying to understand why that disease progresses, why does it start? Look for these things called biomarkers, which should also be known as tests for ALS and bring that to market.
Mike Piscotty
Because if we can, we really believe that if we can get that information known right, why is it start? Why is the progress? Here’s some test for that. The drug companies will get involved and they’ll spend those billions of dollars of research drug research on it. But when I’ve talked to them before, they just said, Mike, it’s too risky.
Mike Piscotty
We don’t know these things, so we can’t really invest a lot in it. So our work is to try to do that basic research, try to understand the disease, and then we want to hand it off to the drug companies and let them create a cure for it.
Chris Carter
Wow. Well, I want to thank Karla Brown, by the way, for bringing us all together. I thought that was very great on her part and in thoughtful to really think about how to make all this work. So, Carla, I hope you you watch this or listen some point. Let’s talk about the show that’s coming up. And I’m excited for about a month away.
Chris Carter
And there’s going to be five guitarists featured. And George, you probably know more about most of these guitarists than me, but I know I’ll just name them off and then you can tell me what’s so special about each one of them. So we have Arlen Roth, who was I saw was in Vintage Guitar Magazine’s 100 most influential guitarists, Jim Soldi, who was in Johnny Cash’s band, and Ricky Skaggs and some other well-known artists, Bill Kirchen and Red Volkaert from Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airman.
Chris Carter
Were they both in that band or was it Bill?
George Bowen
Bill? Bill was Commander Cody.
Chris Carter
Bill was Commander.
George Bowen
So if you’ve ever gone up the grapevine, you’ve probably. You probably know that song.
Mike Piscotty
Yeah. Yep.
Mike Piscotty
Hot Rod Lincoln.
Chris Carter
Yeah, he knew it right away.
George Bowen
Yeah.
Chris Carter
And then there’s Teisco Del Rey, who was also on I think him and Arlen were both writers too, for Guitar Magazine or one of those publications.
George Bowen
Arlen’s an educator, is a performer, educator, teacher, and he put together something called Hot Licks.
Chris Carter
Okay, that’s what it is.
George Bowen
Which back in the 80s, John Entwistle of The Who was his first, he brought 160 or so of the world’s best guitar players in to do the first video education on the guitar education videos. Now you can go to YouTube and do it, but back then there was no YouTube and he put together this video collection with the Who’s Who, literally starting with John Entwistle and so should I say…
Chris Carter
Yeah, let’s talk about all of them. Yeah. Tell me what you like about them. Well, what should we expect?
George Bowen
These were I feel more than touched. And that two of them, Arlen, Arlen Roth and Jim Soldi are the two that play on guitars and and their primarily electric guitar players. Maybe that’s how I had a chance with an acoustic guitar with them.
Chris Carter
Yeah.
George Bowen
But Arlen is a he. He is. The more I learned about him, he, he reached out. There’s quite a story that we don’t have time for. But I originally met him when he contacted me to build a guitar for him and, and it took a very long time to there were some setbacks, including the diagnosis and all the testing that Mike just talked about in in the building of of of Arlen’s guitar.
But I got to I got to know him personally through many conversations. He was very interested in the building process. And I keep reading about Arlen going, okay, he played for Bob Dylan. He was in Bob Dylan’s band. He did two or three movies with Bob Dylan. He was in the Simon and Garfunkel’s band and toured the world several times with Simon and Garfunkel and Paul Simon separately and Art Garfunkel separately.
He gave guitar lessons to Paul Simon. He was doing Saturday Night Live in 1978 or 79 with Art Garfunkel, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd said, Hey Arlen, come up here, let’s goof around before the show. And they did a song. Arlen taught John Belushi how to sing rock at 88, which has to do with a car. And Arlen is kind of a car guy, too, but and so they wore dark sunglasses and did that.
Ruth Egherman
Oh, no.
George Bowen
That night.
Ruth Egherman
Is that the birth of The Blues Brothers?
George Bowen
That was the birth of The Blues Brothers.
Ruth Egherman
Oh! Get out!
George Bowen
So and Arlen’s Arlen knows it and has played with it’s hard. I’ve I think I’ve yet to find a person except Jim Soldi who hadn’t played. So Arlen’s played with the rest of the people on the bill. Bill Kirchen is and these are all wonderfully nice people. Bill’s an incredible guitar player. They all tend to play Telecasters with the exception of Teisco, who’s kind of a he’s kind of add a different flavor to the show, but Arlen is, is plays every style and he is a person that you mention his name to a guitar player and and they’re going to light up.
He’s going to be an absolute treat. And the man is the nicest. He is the nicest. He is he’s a wonderful person to and and Jim is a Jim is also primarily an electric guitar. He plays both acoustic and electric guitar and he started also in San Diego. And I knew him way back when we were kind of in the same musical circle back then.
And he went to Nashville, became a studio musician in Nashville, and Marty Stuart, who was playing in Johnny Cash’s band, called Jim and said, Can you come down? I decided I’m going to go out on my own. Marty was Johnny Cash’s backup guitar player.
Chris Carter
Yeah.
George Bowen
And so Marty said, Can you come down and I want you to meet Johnny.
And it turns out it was an audition, but Jim played, I don’t know, a song or two. And and then Marty says, Here’s some clothes. There’s the bus.
Chris Carter
The road. You’re on it.
George Bowen
Go get on the bus. And Jim played with Johnny Cash for seven or eight years. And the Cash, the Carter family, June Carter and and in the course of that, he would play. Oh, he he’d get billed. Emmylou Harris might open for Johnny Cash. And so, you know, he got to know all the other artists and has played with a number of them separately as well and still doing studio work.
And then Albert Lee is a name that if you’re a guitar player, you know Albert Lee too. Albert Lee was he grew up in England with Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and of one or two other of the guy, Keith Richards, they would all hang out the same music store, a guitar shop and but the rest of them went into rock.
And Albert loved sort of rockabilly country music, and he was in he was a Cricket and Buddy Holly and The Crickets band and he played for Eric Clapton. He was Eric Clapton’s guitarist for a number of years when Eric was out on his own. And and Eric has called him the best guitar player in the world. So you have Eric Clapton.
Anyway, Jim’s a good friend of ours. Albert goes to Ricky Skaggs. And if you know country music, Ricky’s a was a child prodigy of of mandolin and all the instruments. I mean, he’s he’s an incredible player in his own right. And Albert went to Ricky and said, you got to hire Jim Soldi. So when you have a musician of the stature of Ricky saying, you know, you need Jim in your band and Jim has played with he was he’s not Canadian, but he was number one.
He was the number one instrumentalist in Canada for one particular year. But he, too, has played with a vast array of people, and he’s if you if you’re watching this and you play the guitar, these are the best guitar players in the world.
Chris Carter
You know, I asked Jim when I was talking to him about the show, I, I couldn’t help it. I said, what was it like to tour with Johnny Cash? And the one story he said was when they would walk to the airport. And Johnny’s always in this long black jacket. Yeah. And he’s a big, towering guy. Like, it was like people parted the Red Sea for him.
And that was this. And you’re just behind him and everyone, you just had this presence. And I think that’s what impressed him the most is like everywhere he went, you know, people just just moved away or out of his way, but in a good way. Yeah. Yeah. He had this aura.
George Bowen
Yeah, he did. Bill Kirchen. We briefly touched on. He’s he’s done far more than Commander Cody. He’s a studio musician in his own right. He’s played on a bunch of other albums, a fabulous guitarist, extremely funny. He believes in entertaining the audience and if we’re if we’re fortunate enough and I have a feeling we will be we’ll get to hear “Hot Rod Lincoln” like we’ve never heard it before.
Redd Volkaert played with Merle Haggard. He was Merle Haggard’s guitar player. And it’s funny, I asked Jim, Have you ever played with Redd? And he said, no. But I was on a I was touring in Norway and Redd went on just before we went on. So I don’t know if it was with Ricky Skaggs or with Johnny Cash, but so they were on the same stage at the same place in Norway together, but they’ve never actually played together.
But Redd is he has an incredible voice, a unique style, stylistically, and he’s coming from Australia. He’s touring in Australia just before he comes to do our show. So it’s.
Mike Piscotty
A long commute.
George Bowen
It’s a long commute and and then and then Teisco is is he played briefly in the ventures he’s us it’s sort of a mix of of of Austin meets the Beach Boys he has his own flavor of surf music and he has a split. He’s he’s really two people he’s these Teisco Del Rey and I’m not sure not sure what what to call him he’s the most interesting person to talk to because he is is along with his performing he which will add a different flavor to the show and he’s an extremely accomplished player as well.
He’s also a journalist. He’s the editor of Vintage Guitar Magazine and he was the editor of Guitar Player magazine and he has interviewed George Harrison, Eric Clapton, on and on. And so he’s I had a call with him the other day and looked at my watch and we were 2 hours into it and.
Ruth Egherman
And still plenty to go.
George Bowen
And still plenty to go so and so. And there will be a few surprises in the show, too, but there’ll be solo work by these individual artists. You’ll get to hear them do their… You know, I’m sure there will be a Johnny Cash song, you know, and Merle Haggard song and we’ll hear something from well, I know we hear some Simon and Garfunkel.
We’ll hear some Bob Dylan Arlen’s already told me a few of the songs he’s planning on doing. So they’re going to be playing music from the artists that they played with and and then doing some things together too, which will be really special.
Ruth Egherman
This sounds like a night. Like we would be lucky to get just one of them and to get five of these extraordinary guitar players on one night on the same stage.
George Bowen
And there’s a backup band too.
Ruth Egherman
And a back up band.
George Bowen
And the backup band are no slouches either. This is a fabulous band, four person band. It is.
Chris Carter
It’s Jim’s band, right?
George Bowen
It’s Jim’s band. Yeah. It’s also Richie Furay’s band from from the founder of Buffalo Springfield and Poco. So they’ll, they’ll, they do their own gigs as a band. And then when Richie goes out on the road, they go out with him backing him up. So so yeah it rarely on, on a stage do you have this many guitarists of this stature.
Yeah.
Chris Carter
Yeah. Well I we’re, our goal is to sell it out. So we’re going to try and fill this house and there’s ways to support the event to right Mike?
Mike Piscotty
Absolutely. I think that’s just a great way to lead in, you know, and I would I think just I get mesmerized just listening to this. Right. And, you know, we can imagine what a concert is going to be. But one of the things that’s unique about this event that we’ve done is for those people that sponsors are sponsorships available, there’s going to be an opportunity before the concert to meet these guys and mingle with them.
And so imagine having five of these gentlemen and the stories that they would be able to tell you. And that building and do that interaction is, I think is as well. Yeah, they’re both going to be wonderful, but I’m just looking to looking forward to the pre event as well as the performance.
Chris Carter
And we’re going to have some things to auction off and you know, a lot of guitar related stuff. And you know, I think especially this is a I’ve noticed this is a guitar community. I mean, heavy guitar fans here. So I think a lot of people would really be interested in coming out to see this and participate.
Ruth Egherman
So far. Yeah, a lot of people.
Chris Carter
Yeah. To me it’s just been good.
Ruth Egherman
Ticket sales have been great and.
Mike Piscotty
Yeah, they’re going, I think that’s marvelous. You know, we’re going to we’re going to purchase some guitars and there’ll be opportunities to get some of these gentlemen to sign them and take them away. I’m also bringing a special one that was given to our charity a little while back from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam. And I have a Fender guitar signed by the entire Pearl Jam band that we’re going to live auction as well.
Ruth Egherman
Wonderful!
Mike Piscotty
At the event. So again all that all that’s.
Chris Carter
You can just leave that in my office.
Ruth Egherman
I know what Chris is bidding on.
Chris Carter
I might not have enough money for that one. Well, and then I want to go back to just to kind of circle back to the guitar part of your life. And, you know, you make these acoustic guitars is there. And as a fan of the guitar, I know especially the acoustic guitar, they’re they’re all unique and different and personalized.
And for you, like, is there a style that you like to do or I don’t want let’s not I don’t spend hours talking about this, but I know like you could, you know, you start with the wood and then you go from there and kind of tell me a little bit about the guitars that you make.
49183 – 49695
George Bowen
We’ve talked before. That’s what I picked up on that cue, we don’t want to could take hours talking about because I could but one description of a luthier is someone who starts with a piece of wood and takes everything away. That’s not a guitar. And you have a guitar left, but the wood has a lot to do with it.
49695 – 50770
George Bowen
And, and there are factory guitars and then there are custom guitars and custom made guitars really were not available until the late 70s, maybe 1980s, when builders began to make guitars that they could actually sell and compete with Martin at that point in time, that was before Taylor entered the market market there was Martin, was Martin and Gibson made acoustic guitars and and and Guild and a few other makers, but I was curious as a guitar player about how does the sound what how does it work?
George Bowen
I just it was a curiosity in me. And I thought if I can I can understand how the guitar works that will help me in my playing. And it has and I’m I’m fortunate enough to have some very close friends who are some of the best builders in arguably one who is is certainly his guitars are in the most demand.
And for example, James Taylor only plays Jim Olson’s guitars. Jim’s is a close friend of mine and he’s done a lot, is giving me a lot of help along the way and learning. How to build and and.
Always picks up the phone and Jim, I got a problem with this or that, you know, and and he’ll put down the guitar. He’s making first Sting for example, and his guitars. Paul Stanley just bought one. John Mayer. Sting. Paul McCartney’s autobiography has him on the cover with one of Jim’s guitars. Paul Simon plays one and in his concert, it’s it’s the only guitar that that really the James Taylor plays is are Jim’s guitars and the list goes on and on of Stephen Stills, David Crosby.
I had a at least one of Jim’s guitars, so he’s helped me a lot. But it, it, you start with, with wood and the backs and sides tend to come from low altitude tropical places and the tops tend to come from higher altitude. It’s a generalization, but they don’t tend to come from the same place. So and the ecological concerns are a growing concern that we don’t want to deplete the forests of these rare and special woods.
So fortunately, there are laws in place that protect the woods and consequently, a lot of the wood that I have is very, very old, which predated a concern for the environment.
Chris Carter
Yeah, right.
George Bowen
Yeah. And, and each piece of wood is different. So there is no cookie cutter way, there’s no uniform thickness to it. I let the wood tell me how thick it wants to be.
And you, you, you hold enough wood and tap enough wood and flex it, and you begin to let the wood it begins to communicate with you of what how stiff it wants the bracing to be and how thick it wants to be. And that but I tend to make an OM model, which is an orchestra model. It’s a medium sized guitar and it is the perfect guitar for recording because it has the lows and the highs, but it’s not necessarily the loudest guitar.
If you’re going to play it unmiked, it it records they record well and that’s what I put into the guitars to maybe come to the show and you’ll see some of them and grab me and we can talk more about it then rather than taking the time now.
Ruth Egherman
Well, I have a question. What kind of woods do you like to work with for the body and and then for the neck?
George Bowen
Okay, I’m building I’m building six more and and I’m, I’m fighting this disease.
Ruth Egherman
Yeah.
George Bowen
When you’re diagnosed, they tell you you have no hope. And maybe this needs to be said that virtually every other disease you get, they tell you whether it’s a tiny bit of hope, you know, yeah, you’ve got this really bad type of cancer. But but, you know, there’s a tiny bit of hope, but they do tell you there’s no hope when they diagnose you.
At least that’s what I was told. And but I. I just I just can’t accept that there’s always hope and, you know, and none of us know how many days we have. What I do know that I need to make the most of today and in this concert as part of that, that, you know, we’re all here and we can waste every day of our life.
And I don’t know how many days I have. I hope I’m on the longer end of the scale. Or I hope I’m long enough that we find a cure.
Mike Piscotty
Yeah.
George Bowen
But I’m building six more guitars and the woods I’ve chosen for those are, are my favorites. So, and I’ve named each guitar. I had orders, I canceled the orders.
I said I’m very sorry, but I, I don’t want your deposit. I don’t want a deadline. I’m going to build these guitars and I don’t know what I’m going to face along the way. You know, I’m losing strength in my hands and legs and feeling the effects of the disease. But these these are two of the guitars are the backs and sides are Brazilian rosewood, which is highly sought after, is very expensive.
Two of them are Koa, which is one of the most probably the most beautiful wood, the koa that I have is is the best of the best. They’re they’re, I was working with it last night. In fact, it’s absolutely gorgeous. Wood is Hawaiian wood.
Ruth Egherman
Yeah. Yeah. It’s beautiful.
George Bowen
It’s beautiful wood.
Ruth Egherman
It’s very striking.
George Bowen
One other is is from a very unique tree. There’s one tree called “The Tree”. It is famous. National Geographic did a story. Look it up “The Tree”. It’s it’s a Honduran mahogany cut down in about 1979 and it is highly figured it’s it it’s the most rare and expensive anyway. And then the last one is African Blackwood. It’s a dark wood and that I’m I’m the top for that is extremely rare the top from that guitar most of the tops I use alpine rosewood or European spruce rather either that or red spruce which is also called Adirondack Spruce.
So they’re either European alpine spruce. But this this particular the top comes from the beams that made the ceiling of the Munich cathedral, which that they through dendrochronology. The tree sprouted in 1081. In about 1470, it was cut down by peasants in the Alps and floated down the river to build the beams of the Frauenkirche in Munich, bombed in 1944 and built into a guitar in 2023.
Ruth Egherman
Wow.
George Bowen
So it’s very, very old, but it’ll be a unique I have the last of it too, so that’ll be a special guitar.
Ruth Egherman
So absolutely. Yeah.
Chris Carter
That’s so amazing. So it’s like this I always think of guitars as like living objects, you know? And it came from a tree, from a living thing. So this tree was–lived 1000 years ago, lived another life as a wood at a church.
George Bowen
400 years of music and yeah.
Chris Carter
And went into this, went and then it’s made its way to you and then it’s going to be this instrument where it will still sing.
George Bowen
And and it will live on.
Chris Carter
And it will live on and carry your voice.
George Bowen
Yeah.
Chris Carter
So that’s such a great story.
George Bowen
So, so my goal is my, the goal for my guitar is, is to bring joy. You know, this is not I’m not out to I’m not out to make a fortune on doing this. I really want to make the very best guitars that I can make and put my soul into them, which I really do.
Mike Piscotty
I hope so.
George Bowen
It every chisel, stroke, every little thing that I do is intended to infuse my desire for more joy in this world that desperately needs more joy, which is what the audience will get a big dose of at our concert. So if there’s an empty seat, that’s a person who’s missed out on a lot of joy.
Mike Piscotty
There will be a lot of joy. You know, it’s so exciting to to see, you know, your your approach to life. And, you know, when when I took Gretchen through our journey, you know, you know, after she was diagnosed, she called it the day of the bomb drop. But, you know, was what you look at is, hey, let’s make every day the best day we can make it.
George Bowen
Yeah.
Mike Piscotty
Right and its so inspiring to see you do that with something you love, right? I think it’s just fantastic.
Chris Carter
Well, it. Was there anything else you wanted to say?
George Bowen
No, this is it’s not this is not a commercial for the guitars.
Chris Carter
Well, I– I just want to thank you both and Ruth.
Ruth Egherman
Yeah.
Chris Carter
I’m so glad we could come together and make this happen. And for anybody that’s interested in coming out to see this and participate, it is March 15th, Wednesday, March 15th at 7:30 at The Bankhead Theater in Downtown Livermore. And you can get tickets online at LivermoreArts.org.
And there’s also information about sponsorship. If you want to be a sponsor or you want to get more involved, there’s ways to get a hold of us and and find out how you can do that and and support George and then support Mike in the ALS Cure Project. And I love how it’s called the Cure Project.
Mike Piscotty
You know, Cure project means projects meaning to have a beginning and the end.
George Bowen
Yeah.
Mike Piscotty
And our end is a cure so. And then when that ends I go fishing. So we shut down the cure project and Mike goes fishing. So that’s. Well, let’s get to our goal.
Ruth Egherman
Let’s get Mike fishing. Let’s get Mike fishing, and George building guitars for a long time.
Chris Carter
Yeah. So yeah. Thank you both. And we look forward to.
Mike Piscotty
Thanks, Chris and Ruth.
Ruth Egherman
Thank you so much.
Chris Carter
We look forward to seeing everyone there. All right. Thank you.
