Saturday, August 02, 2008
Film festival features local guitar legend
A close-to-home story shares top billing with films from around the world in the 9th annual Real to Reel International Film Festival.
The too-short but trail-blazing career of Cowpens, S.C., native Hank Garland makes a compelling story with ties to a handful of local musicians.
"Crazy" will screen Friday night and, at Saturday's Festival Wrap Party, area musicians who knew Hank and his music and played with him will pay tribute in the lobby of the Joy Theatre.
Bill Allen of Cherryville remembers jamming with "one of the greatest and most influential" country/jazz guitarists from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s.
Garland played on a number of hits with Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline and Shelby's Don Gibson. He worked live or in studios with Chet Atkins, Grady Martin, Jim Reeves, Patti Page, Eddy Arnold, Tommy Jackson and other legends.
Allen took John Reid of Shelby Music Center to Hank's home, where he brought out his own Gibson Byrdland Guitar that he and Billy Byrd (another session guitarist and Ernest Tubb's long-time lead guitarist) designed.
"The Byrdland name comes from the combination of their names," Reid said. "The old ones have greatly increased in value and Gibson is still making them in limited quantities in their Heritage line."
Read the whole article and get some insight into what Don Gibson thought of this legendary musician.
The Star (Cleveland County, NC)
The too-short but trail-blazing career of Cowpens, S.C., native Hank Garland makes a compelling story with ties to a handful of local musicians.
"Crazy" will screen Friday night and, at Saturday's Festival Wrap Party, area musicians who knew Hank and his music and played with him will pay tribute in the lobby of the Joy Theatre.
Bill Allen of Cherryville remembers jamming with "one of the greatest and most influential" country/jazz guitarists from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s.
Garland played on a number of hits with Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline and Shelby's Don Gibson. He worked live or in studios with Chet Atkins, Grady Martin, Jim Reeves, Patti Page, Eddy Arnold, Tommy Jackson and other legends.
Allen took John Reid of Shelby Music Center to Hank's home, where he brought out his own Gibson Byrdland Guitar that he and Billy Byrd (another session guitarist and Ernest Tubb's long-time lead guitarist) designed.
"The Byrdland name comes from the combination of their names," Reid said. "The old ones have greatly increased in value and Gibson is still making them in limited quantities in their Heritage line."
Read the whole article and get some insight into what Don Gibson thought of this legendary musician.
The Star (Cleveland County, NC)
# posted by Dave Sichak @ 10:47 PM 
