And it wasn’t the only writing on his guitar, it also had the word “Thanks” written on the back. Perhaps the first singer to have this done was Jimmie Rogers, whose custom-ordered 1927 Martin 000-45 had his name along the fingerboard in MOP inlay. The guitar as billboard with mother-of-pearl letters - and the bigger the letter, the better - an early way of advertising your brand. later did in tribute with two custom made guitars for Fletcher fan Bob Dylan. Many, like south paw Tex Fletcher, would have their name inlaid right up the neck - something C.F. Maybe it was a way to identify yourself to the drunks all the way back at the bar, peering up at yet another rhinestone cowboy in a ten gallon hat. And of course a lot of early Western artists had their names put prominently on their guitars.
Country & Western musicians were notorious for decorating their guitars, a tradition Gretsch upheld in a rather kitsch way throughout the 1950s with varying degrees of ‘the cowboy treatment’. In the popular era of 6 string slingers, most of the earliest writing done on guitars happened at the manufacturing stage. I mean, can there be any more powerful statement than a pink guitar with a portrait of Hello Kitty? Just keep it real - and I’m not suggesting you carve 4 REAL into it with a razor blade - though as we’ll see, some musicians have felt the need to scratch their words deep into the timber. If you’re going to make a declaration with the look of your instrument the only real caveat is make sure that what your saying is worth saying.
So before you reach for the rattle cans, and start spraying “This Machine Arms The Homeless” on your dad’s ’62 White Falcon, consider this. But who, I wonder, was the first person to inscribe a written message to spectators on their instrument, and what were they trying to say? Could it have been as trite as an insult? “Yo Mesopotamians, you suck!” You would hope it was something more positive and inspiring than that. And there’s evidence that instruments were given names from early history, much as weapons often were, whether those weapons of music were taken up in arms in the name of freedom or otherwise. Stringed instruments surviving from the very earliest civilisations are often ornately adorned with carving and inlays. It’s possible that musical instruments have always been decorated, either by their makers or by their players.
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