I love guitars and if you love guitars then you must read this book. I could not put this book down. The book is not about Eric Clapton but rather about Wayne Henderson a Virginia luthier who builds arguably the greatest hand made guitars in the world. He is asked to build two guitars for legendary guitarist Eric CLapton. Henderson is a true, simple, gifted craftsman, perhaps a dying breed, who builds guitars that are equal in quality to the great aged Martin guitars. You will learn a lot after reading this book. While this book obviously appeals to guitar fans it's broad enough and interesting enough to appeal to a wide vvariety of people. The auther Allen St John himself a guitar player did a fantastic job in portaying Henderson and the cast of characters that hang around his little guitar shop. The only dissapointing thing is that you never find out if Eric CLapton liked the guitars or what eventually happened to them. ( )

Marvelous book, one of those, for me at least, that once I start, I can't put it down. Learned a lot about guitar making in general and Martin guitars in particular. While (one of) the guitars being made by Henderson was for Clapton, he doesn't figure very prominently in the book and in fact, except for a piece at the beginning, really doesn't show up at all. The book recounts events up until 2005 or so. It left me wanting to know what happened after that - to the luthier Henderson, or the writer St John, and Clapton upon actually playing his new guitar. One neat thing is that YouTube has a lot of videos of Wayne Henderson both making and playing guitar. ( )

Anyone expecting a busload of juicy anecdotes about Eric Clapton while reading this book will be disappointed. The focus of the book is on the front cover: it's the GUITAR, stupid!

Actually the guitar almost becomes a bit player in its own book - the story is about its creator, retired mailman, Wayne C. Henderson. Who builds handmade guitars for friends. Not prolifically, not with state of the art equipment, and not in a hurry. The waiting can be a decade or longer for a Wayne Henderson guitar.

It's the process: from selecting the woods, and cutting away the bits that aren't a guitar... Homespun that may sound - but that's essentially the philosophy of Wayne Henderson.

St. John documents the characters, the steps, the technical skill, and the humanity that goes into making a handmade Henderson acoustic guitar. But this book isn't as dry as wood shavings: it pulses with passion, precision and tenderness: life itself!

Eric Clapton just happened to play one of Henderson's guitars in a recording studio. The rest is - in this book.

Unputdownable.