This is my 777th post, so I wanted it to be special, and I believe it is because it shares some of the life of a good man: Buster B. Jones.
While Buster will long be remembered as one of the best fingerstyle guitar pickers of all time, he was more than a guitar picker. To me and countless others, he was a friend and an inspiration. He was good-hearted and generous, and I want to share a bit about how generous he was with me. Buster and I did not get to know each other until late in life, so some of you who knew him longer probably have additional stories of his generosity, and it would be nice if you would share them in the comments.
About a year and a half or so ago, I was chatting with Buster and mentioned that I was thinking of getting a Godin Nylon guitar, but that I didn’t really want to spend that kind of money from my retirement income. He offered to get one for me at his discount price, with me just paying him back for it. He also offered to autograph it and break it in for me. A great picture of him signing it is shown in this post. A more close-up view of his signature can be seen in the following picture:
Now that was plenty generous enough. I kinda figured that Buster had gone out of his way like this for me because of how much he had liked my Dad … they had met several years earlier and bonded instantly. Dad even gave Buster one of his original landscape paintings that was worth several thousand dollars (it was very rare for Dad to give paintings away). But, Buster went beyond that generosity and added in one of his personal hard-shell guitar cases (see the picture below) along with a half dozen sets of top quality strings, a fine leather strap, a CD of tunes from him just setting around and playing, and a handful of his signature Fred Kelly picks.
Although I didn’t do a great job with the focus on the case, you can see that it has stickers from his carrying it around the world. And, just for completeness, here’s a snapshot of the strings and the strap:
Buster and I talked on the phone fairly often. Whenever I would get in a slump and lose interest in playing, Buster would talk me back into playing. (I wish he could do it now, because I haven’t played in six months. Hopefully I’ll get back into into it soon, though, and maybe make a YouTube or two in a few weeks.) So, one day I decided to send him a CD of about a dozen tunes I recorded, to show him I had gotten my interest back. The tunes included one that I wrote for him, named For Buster, and one that I kinda wanted him to record: Victoria. I didn’t even care if I got credit for writing Victoria … it just seemed to me to be a good tune for Buster (and his playing it would be a neat tribute to my late wife).
With the CD, I included a letter in which I mentioned that I had been thinking about revising my will to leave my late Dad’s Country Gentleman to Buster and Dad’s Gallagher (serial # 777) to Thom Bresh. Not only did I feel that this would be a way of kinda paying Buster back for helping me so much, I also knew Dad had loved both guys and I felt like he would have been pleased with those guitars being in their hands. Of course, Buster called me afterward and asked me to not do that, because he had more guitars than he knew what to do with, and so on.
To this day, It still almost gives me cold chills when I think back on this because it turned out being about 2 weeks before Buster died. Here I was thinking that Buster would outlive me by several years, but all of a sudden he was gone.
Buster’s lady friend Nancy called me a couple of hours after he passed away to give me the shocking news. (Even though it has been several months, it is still shocking.) She also wanted me to know that my Godin is priceless because it is the last thing that Buster ever autographed. That humbles me, but of course I have no plans to ever try to make money from selling it. The guitar means far too much to me for that.
Anyway, I wanted to share a bit about Buster and how kind and generous he was. I have tried to honor his memory with the tune God Rest Ye Buster, but I feel that my attempts at musical and verbal tributes have been totally inadequate. So, I hope some of Buster’s friends will add some thoughts in the comments below.