Did I ever tell you about the Black Beauty? No? Well, I’d better then…
I was 18 at the time, and I was studying to be an electronics engineer in Örebro, a small town in the middle of Sweden. Well, I was supposed to study anyway, but to be honest, for some strange reason, I was far more interested in music than in doing my homework, learning about Ohm’s Second Law, and things like that. I liked the blues, mainly the Chicago style, as played by people like Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and the King of the Blues himself, mister B.B. King.
The records by those statesmen of the blues, were hard to get hold of in Sweden. Most of the licks I heard, and tried to copy, came from the gifted fingers of white guys living in the U.K. There was this guy, in particular, who was portrayed in an article in Melody Maker, a popular music magazine from England, which I could buy from my local tobacconist’s. His name was Jimmy Page, and he worked as a guitarist doing sessions for almost every popular artist and band in England at the time. In the photo, which was accompanying this article, he was more or less caressing a lovely piece of instrument. It was a Gibson Les Paul Custom. And before you ask me… Yes, of course I’ve seen a Les Paul before, but this one was really different. It had three pickups and it was black. Well, in those days you seldom saw a colour picture in a magazine of this kind anyway, but you could still tell from the black-and-white picture, that this guitar was black. Black as the night.
I immediately fell in love with this beautiful creature, but in my heart of hearts I knew we were never to be.
I mean, I had a white old telecaster and she was really more than okay. The image of this beauty haunted me and when I found a second-hand copy of Jimmy Page’s guitar in the window of a local music shop, I was really thrilled. This instrument had a few dings and blemishes, but still it was more or less identical to Page’s guitar.
I wanted it so badly, but how on earth was I going to be able to finance this purchase? The asking price was 850 SEK (about $100). I had no extra job and it was really more than I could afford at the time…
I tried every trick in the book to find that cash, but no luck, and days and weeks passed by. Every once in a while I cruised past the music shop, just to catch a glimpse of the Black Beauty – she was still sitting in the shop window. Truthfully it was no coincidence that I happened to walk by this shop every day, more or less.
My last ditch of hope was if I could somehow persuade my dear old mother to help me out with at least a part of this handsome sum of money – remember, we’re talking mid 60’s now.
One night, after having cooked my mother a surprise dinner, she finally gave in, and she told me I could borrow the money.
Ecstatic, the next morning I ran the few hundred yards to the music shop in a matter of seconds flat, and I managed to reach for the handle just as the shop-keeper was unlocking the door. Panting and out of breath I managed to ask:
– The Black Beauty… is she still for sale?
The man starred at me blankly for a few seconds, until finally a look of realization cleared his brow:
– Ah, you mean the second-hand Les Paul Custom? Well, I’m terribly sorry, but I sold it yesterday, to a guitarist playing in this band from Hjortkvarn?
– Hjortkvarn, I said, as if this little village had anything at all to do with anything, at this very moment.
– Yes, Hjortkvarn, he replied.
– You must be joking, I said. It’s been sitting in your window for more than six weeks, and now you tell me it’s been sold???
– I’m sorry, he said, but that’s what we do for a living. We sell guitars.
I was devastated. I couldn’t believe my ears – nor my eyes, suddenly seeing the place where she has sat, now filled with another guitar.
– Hjortkvarn…
This was the last thing he heard me say. I left and I never went back to that shop. I also never saw the Black Beauty again. Through the years l occasionally heard rumours about people having seen a black Les Paul Custom with three pickups – once in Gothenburg, another time in Stockholm – but I never saw her with my own eyes again.
A couple of years later I managed to get hold of a quite nice cherry ES-345, a bit similar to the one B.B. King and Alvin Lee were playing at the time, but within a few months I knew this wasn’t true love, and never would be. Not like the love I had for the Black Beauty.
I tell myself though, that if I had managed to buy the Les Paul Custom that day in this shop, within a few years I probably would have traded it in, for a new and nicer model. Just like I had with the ES-345.
On the other hand, maybe she would have stayed with me even ‘til this day … more than 50 years later. Well, you never know, do you?
That’s part of the Blues, isn’t it?
