Guitar: an American Life

When baggage handlers destroy Tim Brookes's guitar, he discovers that a dream guitar is built, not bought, and sets out to find someone to make him the perfect guitar. His quest takes him across the country, talking to historians, curators, and guitar makers, and he explores the guitar's mystique: freedom, the open road, protest and rebellion, the blues, youth, lost love, and sexuality. In an extraordinary variety of hands--miners and society ladies, lumberjacks and presidents' wives, Hawaiians, African-Americans, Cajuns, jazz players, spiritualists, singing cowboys of the silver screen, and Beatles fans--it has become America's instrument.--From publisher description.