James Joyce

[medblues]

[medblues]

[citizenk74]

Definitely the instrument of a struggling, if not starving, artist. I'm familiar with the type - my wife's Sears Stella was similar - the unforgiving fret board, flat and lifeless, the apalling action. You really had to want it bad to subject yourself to it's harms. Nevertheless, I persisted, to little effect.
I admire Joyce's persistence, and his literary works.

[Rob MacKillop]

He had a beautiful voice, but as bad as the guitar was, his guitar playing did not honour it.

[Dennis D]

He had a beautiful voice, but as bad as the guitar was, his guitar playing did not honour it.

Rob

Speaking of JJ, did you also happen to get a photo of yourself in front of S & Co. when you stayed the night ?

Sorry for changing /stretching the subject, but that's still as cool as a story gets !

Dennis

[Rob MacKillop]

Sadly not. This was long before mobile phones were invented, and I certainly couldn’t afford a camera. Also, the photo of Joyce and Sylvia above is a different place. The Shakespeare & Co store moved to its present whereabouts (and where I first saw it) in the early 1950s. So, sadly, not the place Jimmy Jazz (as I sometimes call him) hung out. That makes the story a little less cool..

[Ol' Fret]

Camerado!
This is no guitar;
Who touches this,
touches a man;
(Is it night?
Are we here alone?)
It is I you hold,
and who holds you;
I spring from the
strings into your arms,
into your heart ...

Adapted from Walt Whitman "So long", Leaves of Grass



John Feeley on James Joyce guitar - Veojam

[docsteve]

From the sublime to the ridiculous:

There is a young fellow named Joyce,
Who possesses a sweet tenor voice.
He goes down to the kips,
With a psalm on his lips,
And biddeth the harlots rejoice.’

(by Joyce's college friend, Oliver St Gogarty)

[Rob MacKillop]

While we are contributing Joyce-related poems…here’s mine. It’s starts with that image of him playing guitar in my mind:

Giacomo Sings


Sheersoft liltsong airlipped
layplucked


river runs through stave and clef
through quay and Howth
(easy now, Jamesy)

sea-scored shells crack beneath ash and leather
while salt-pocked waves sound out new shores,
and the unwaxed feather
sun-scarred
falls driftwards

Trieste
Ithaca
Dalkey
Exile

[Dennis D]

Sadly not. This was long before mobile phones were invented, and I certainly couldn’t afford a camera. Also, the photo of Joyce and Sylvia above is a different place. The Shakespeare & Co store moved to its present whereabouts (and where I first saw it) in the early 1950s. So, sadly, not the place Jimmy Jazz (as I sometimes call him) hung out. That makes the story a little less cool..

Nah, still cool Rob !

[Flat]

Thanks for that video, medblues!

I got to see that guitar in the museum at the Martello Tower in Sandycove in 2003. Here are my tourist photos of the guitar and the view from the tower.