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I built the gourdtar back in the 90s from a giant dipper gourd I found at the North Carolina Farmers' Market in Raleigh. One of my professors in grad school at NCSU had a wood shop and he helped me built the neck and the fingerboard. When I moved to Shreveport around 2000, I fashioned the current bridge from some bamboo growing in my new backyard. The various pickups were a more recent addition.
The gourdtar is more or less a three string lap steel, though you could also look at it as a fretless mountain dulcimer if you preferred. In fact, I often drone strings on it while playing slide on just the high or high and middle strings, a technique quite similar to the way "traditional" players use a noter on a mountain dulcimer.
We have a lot of fun playing this one at shows, but because the gourdtar is fragile, its something of a rarity in our shows these days.
There's yet another version of this song on the Twang Darkly cd Live from Wire Mountain; in fact, this very track is available as a free promotional download. Likewise, the original version is on my Devil's Stomping Ground album.
Get More Gourd!
See all the recordings/videos I've created that feature gourdtar.
