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Boston, Massachusetts - August, 2006 This is a tale of two guitars. One just entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The other has credentials for another kind of hall of fame - if we had a hall for guitars that saved lives. That's not a metaphor, as it was when Lou Reed sang of his protagonist, Ginny, that "her life was saved by rock 'n' roll" in the Velvet Underground song "Rock and Roll." This was real life, and it happened on a London street. But let's start with the guitar in the Rock Hall. John Diggins, a guitar craftsman in northern England, made it in 1980. His creation was an off-white, custom-made copy of the Vox Teardrop guitar. The first owner was singer-songwriter-guitarist Dave Wakeling, co-leader of a Birmingham, England ska-rock septet called the English Beat which formed in 1978 and disbanded, at least in its original form, in 1982. (Wakeling and his partner, singer Ranking Roger, later formed General Public; today Wakeling leads one band called the English Beat, based in California, and Roger leads another band called the Beat, based in England.) The ska-rock bands, which included the Specials, the Selector and Madness, were noted for their feel-good ska beat (a faster version of reggae), a manic stage presence, a mixture of blacks and whites (in the bands, in the audience) and, often left-wing or humanistic politics. The movement, also called two-tone (the black-white aspect of it) was short-lived, as many British musical waves are. But it was an important part of the post-punk era, and for that reason the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame wanted Wakeling's guitar in an exhibit about that period of British music. The guitar has a checkerboard sticker, representing the two-tone movement, given to him by someone at a French pirate radio station in 1982 when they opened for the Clash. The sticker has remained affixed to the body of the guitar since.  Dave Wakeling & The Teardrop at the RRHOF. Earlier this year, following a Boston concert, Wakeling let me sling the guitar strap around my neck and strum a few unplugged chords. Yes, there was frisson. And fun. "It was a copy of the Vox Teardrop guitar used by Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones," says Wakeling. It's a left-handed guitar Wakeling plays right-handed. "I added a little cutaway so I could move my hand further down the neck to play. I think it was fairly expensive, maybe $1000 then. John Diggins made fine guitars, mostly for heavy metalers, in Birmingham. This one was No. 60. He died ten years ago. It's fantastic for everything except for playing sitting down, as it slides off your knee. Absolutely useless then. I thought it looked cool and I liked the Rolling Stones, I liked Brian Jones. He had long hair and I did, and I'd seen them on the TV. Somebody in Siouxsie and the Banshees had a couple. I wrote 'Save It for Later' on it." So, even if the English Beat never makes the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a part of Wakeling is in there. "Something about the phrase 'Hall of Fame,"' muses Wakeling. "You say it, and they go 'That's fantastic.' That's it. Doesn't matter what you do, if you're a Hall of Famer, it means you must have been quite good at it." When we spoke on the phone after the Boston gig, Wakeling had just donated the guitar - on a two-year loan. "That morning in Cleveland," he says. "It was very, very painful. I delayed packing my bags. I sat down and played the guitar, played a few tunes I'd written on it, one called "You're Called, But I Don't Want to Let You Go." I polished the front, put it in a case, and let it go and gave 'em the guitar. It was sweet. I had to put white gloves on to touch it later. It was not an instrument but an artifact. It was kind of weird. I had to talk to the guitar. I still worry about the guitar sitting in there, thinking 'This is taking a long time for a sound check.' I told the guitar what a great honor it was. The Hall of Fame was thrilled it was a working guitar."
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