Top Photo: Eric Wilhelm tests out his Mitchell HD400 while other recipients of PLAY IT FORWARD guitars check out their new instruments.
Thanks to Fender, Danelectro, and Mitchell, the day before the
Top Photo: Eric Wilhelm tests out his Mitchell HD400 while other recipients of PLAY IT FORWARD guitars check out their new instruments.
Thanks to Fender, Danelectro, and Mitchell, the day before the one-year anniversary of the devastating Northern California fires brought a small but significant ray of light to those who lost instruments in the blazes.
On October 7, the final phase of Guitar Player’s “Play It Forward” benefit concert and guitar giveaway reached a joyful conclusion, as these three manufacturers made it possible to get guitars back into the hands of Sonoma County players — some of whom had also lost their homes, businesses, and/or livelihoods to the fires — who had sent an email request for a guitar to the GP office before the April 20, 2018 concert at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa.
[READ ABOUT THE PLAY IT FORWARD BENEFIT HERE]
[WATCH A VIDEO FROM THE CONCERT]
As Guitar Player was founded in Northern California by the late Bud Eastman, and was based in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1967 until just this summer, it meant a lot to the GP staff to be a small part of the region’s musical healing process. When GP launched the benefit idea early in 2018, no one could have foreseen the concert coming together in such a beautiful way, nor that Fender, Danelectro, and Mitchell would sign on with gusto for our mad dream of replacing some lost guitars.
The visit on Sunday, October 7 to start the process of delivering the free guitars took place in the parking lot of the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, and the venue itself is still