INSTRUMENTALS: It's a String Thing
Here is an initial gallery of some of Bill Hart's craftwork | march10.2023
For friends and musical visitors to Chez Hart in Outback, W.Va., one of the several delights of his hosting chops are introductions to his latest children. That is to say, witnessing the newest instruments he has concocted. Or seeing permutations and updates to an instrument-in-progress. Or noting the dreams and schemes of what he plans to do with an inert, stringless piece of cedar, Osage orange, spruce or some other wood destined one day to ring out its reverberations, once all-strung-out (in a good way). Below is the first of a series of galleries showing Bill Hart’s handiwork, in finished form, or on the way, or in its dreamscape state, in pieces on the bed. ~ Douglas John Imbrogno, March 10, 2023
Works-In-Progress
One guitar and two ukeles await the ministrations and machinations of their maestro creator. | November 2021. | TheStoryIsTheThing.Substack.com photo
Porch Play
Birds aflutter on an Appalachian afternoon. Tall trees creaking in the breeze. Creeks burbling … And a kick-butt, electric Hart-guitar just waiting to be cranked up on the porch of Bill’s old place. | November 2021 | TheStoryIsTheThing.Substack.com photo
One for the Gods — or a Klingon
They just don’t make 5-string, Flying V bass guitars like they used to. Or maybe there has never been a Flying V, 5-string bass guitar like this one, straight from the Frankenstein laboratory in Hartsville, suitable to be hefted by a Klingon punk rocker. Or, in this case, a visitor named Bobby Lee Messer. | September 2021. | TheStoryIsTheThing.Substack.com photo
Stringed Things
You just don’t often see — like, maybe until this very second, in this picture from the heart of the Hart of the country — a homemade ukulele and handmade, mini-Flying V tenor ukulele resting side-by-side. Note the artful inlay on both these stringed siblings: the headstock butterfly on the uke and the fretboard seashell on the V, cut and inlaid from an actual shell. | April 2020. | TheStoryIsTheThing.Substack.com photo
Three’s Company
Who says a bass needs five strings or even four? Three will do just fine, in this handcrafted Hart creation. | April 2022. | TheStoryIsTheThing.Substack.com photo
THREE SHOTS: One Bass, One Bill, One Horse
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One of Bill’s handmade instruments of distinction. Note the artful mother-of-pearl inlay on the fretboard and headstock. Note, also, the rosewood ‘heart’-shaped string cover with its own inlay. Heart shapes are found across the body of work of the bodies of the work of Bill ‘Hart.’
Bill contemplates life in the hills, a handmade bass guitar in hand, at his old place down the holler.
Major the Horse (in contention as ‘The Most Self Aware Equine in All of West Virginia’) nuzzles Bill. He is either asking him to play “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” or seeking a carrot. | All photos shot August 2019 | TheStoryIsTheThing.Substack.com
Presenting the Case
If you’ve got a LOT of instruments, then you are — ipso facto — going to need a LOT of cases. | February 2023 | TheStoryIsTheThing.Substack.com photo
The inlays Bill puts in his musical works of art are just that true works of art. As well as his ability to add a “heart” or “hart” as it were to every creation as an inlay or a magnetic access panel. Unfortunately no matter how descriptive your or my worlds are these musical works of art must be seen to fully understand how breathtaking his creations are. Even though like I said words fall short keep up the good work of bringing all that makes up my friend to those who haven’t had the opportunity or privilege to meet him.