Perhaps you saw it, the Sherwood lap steel on e-Bay a couple weeks back. These reportedly were made by Gibson for Montgomery Ward and were sold in their catalog in the late '40s.
My uncle came home from WWII and settled on the family farm in sw Missouri. He was a talented guitarist and had played since the mid-30s. In the late '40s, Roy Wiggins was recording with Eddie Arnold and Speedy West was burning the strings in live shows over KWTO in Springfield. My uncle got hooked on steel listening to them and in 1949 bought a new Sherwood and an amp from MW. He quickly learned the Wiggins style and played it for the next 40 years. The guitar fascinated me and I fooled around on it, plucking the strings and sliding the bar, and couldn't figure out how to play it. But it was the first steel that I ever laid hands on.
I later moved to Wichita and bought a National lap steel in 1960 and set about learning to play it. By the late '60s I had moved on to my first pedal steel, which I built.
Carl was only ten years older than I and we were very close over the years. When I visited our home area we usually got together for music parties at his house, his daughter on piano, him on the Sherwood and me on pedal steel and occasionally his preacher on standup bass. Those were good times and created a lot of beautiful memories.
I built him a S-10 pedal steel and gave it to him on his 50th wedding anniversary. But he had played lap steel too long and never took to it. He passed away in the mid-90s -- a loss felt deeply by me -- and his musician son took his dad's prized Sherwood to St. Louis where he lives. His family returned the pedal steel to me.
I had never seen another Sherwood until this one came on e-Bay. I ran the bidding on up beyond what the guitar is probably worth, although it is in pretty good shape, but there are a few things in life you can't put a price on and this was one of those moments for me. So I have replaced some tuner knobs and am putting new strings on it, and learning some of Roy's classic numbers -- and recalling some very important days and memories in my life.
[This message was edited by Fred Layman on 22 May 2000 at 05:32 PM.]
