Guitarist gets dad’s ashes interred in the neck of his Telecaster: “This way he will still be with me at all the shows”
Finding the appropriate way to remember a loved one is a very personal thing, and one guitarist from the UK recently decided to comemorate his late father by having his ashes interred in the neck of his Fender Telecaster so that, in his words, “he will still be with me at all the shows”.
37-year-old Mark Wood, who played in several metal bands including Manchester’s Winterfilleth and now performs with Impurist, says his father, Keith Wood, was not only the person who first taught him to play guitar but also his biggest fan – often travelling across the UK and Europe just to watch him perform.
“Dad was my biggest supporter. He just used to rock up at gigs and we’d just have a beer and a catch up,” he tells the BBC.
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Wood says his father died from a heart attack on Christmas Day 2022 at the age of 68. The loss, he adds, had left a “big hole” in the family. His sister Katie chose to have some of their father’s ashes turned into jewellery, which inspired Mark to find a more musical tribute.
That’s when he approached close friend, fellow musician and one-time Guitar.com DIY columnist Sam Orr, who runs Sam’s Guitars in Chester. Orr also knew Keith personally and agreed to take on the delicate task, despite never having attempted anything like it before.
Working ashes into the dotted inlays on the neck of a guitar “was something that I did not know could be done”, Wood admits.
As for the actual process, Orr began by experimenting on a spare neck, eventually developing a method of mixing the ashes with a special glue to fill the fretboard markers.
“At first, I was just wondering how it would work,” he says. “Then the more I thought about it and did a few test runs on a spare guitar neck I had, I realised it wouldn’t be too difficult to complete it.”
Credit: Sam’s Guitars via Instagram
Wood, who was there the entire time, says watching Orr do this “was an emotional experience”: “We put some music on in the background and had a couple of beers and made a thing of it. Sam did the work while the shop was shut and was so caring and careful and really respectful.”
The musician only recently felt ready to play the guitar again, but says the moment he did, “it felt great.”
The first song he played was Ted Nugent’s Stranglehold – a favourite of his dad’s: “He always asked me to play that as a kid,” says Wood, who plans to bring the guitar onstage at his next gig in Hull on 18 July.
“I wish dad was still here but doing this makes me feel like he’s always going to be here with me and you have always got your memories,” he adds. “This way he will still be with me at all the shows and this has given me a sense of closure.”
The post Guitarist gets dad’s ashes interred in the neck of his Telecaster: “This way he will still be with me at all the shows” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
