with Merle Haggard at NAMM
to select and fill up the cases. After Smithsonian Institution and
designing the basic architecture we’re writing a book about
in 2003 we divided the museum the instrument’s incredible
cases time story. It is probably the most
scenes, one being New York 1833- valuable ukulele in the world.
into
chronological
1839, the next one being Cherry
Hill from 1839-1859, next one [CG] As a dominant figure
being the time around the Civil in the guitar industry, do you
War to the early 1900’s, and then have any advice for others?
moving into the Ragtime Era and
the Golden Era preceding WWII. I [Dick] I like the 15 minutes
realized very quickly we didn’t have of fame idea, and I’ve been
much depth in our collection of given 100 times my share. My
early instruments from New York, hope is that in 25, 50, or 75
Cherry Hill, or the pre-1900 period. years from now, people might
Chris Martin focused on filling the
gaps and holes in our collection. We did this
through auctions and purchased instruments
from dealerships (like George Gruhn) that
would come across historic instruments for
our collection.
[CG] Will the Martin Museum be loaning
vintage instruments out for TV or Movies?
[Dick] The simple answer to that is no! Oddly
enough, after the pieces of that “Hateful Eight”
instrument came back to us, I’ve been told
the instrument is worth considerably more
now after having now been part of movie
memorabilia than it would have been as a
playable instrument. We loaned an instrument
to Courtney Love (Kurt Cobain’s widow) for an
MTV Unplugged taping with her band “Hole.”
She asked to borrow a Martin D12-28 guitar
and at the end of the show she smashed the
guitar during the closing credits. I was very
upset by this, but Chris Martin wasn’t very
upset at all. He feels, “It’s part of history now,
and we have the MTV clip of her doing this
to prove it!” I’m trying to look at the “Hateful
Eight” guitar in the same light. We are willing
to collaborate with other museums and to loan
instruments to them for display. But we’re no
longer willing to loan any our historic museum
instruments for use in movies.
[CG] Do you still perform music publicly?
30
[Dick] I love to play guitar, but I don’t consider
myself good enough to write and perform
songs on the guitar. I’ve played autoharp since
I was a teenager. I recorded my first album
called Beside You largely on the autoharp with
guitar work done by my friend, Craig Thatcher.
I’ve been working on a second album, which
is almost done. There are ten original songs,
three covers, and one reprise. It’s got a lot of
instruments including tuba, accordion, violin,
guitar, bass, lots of vocals, autoharp etc. It
should be out by April.
and think of me in a similar vein as someone
like Lloyd Loar. I’ve had the honor of being able
to cause a lot of very special instruments to
happen, and I hope that the company is better
off as a result. These projects came together as
a result of collaborative efforts on the part of the
artist, myself, and Martin production. In many
ways, projects like these produce the very best
of what we do. I’m proud of these projects and
I’m thankful to Chris Martin for giving me the
opportunity to do them. I feel lucky to have had
a job that aligned me with the things that are
most important to me – basically music, art,
[CG] What is your next project?
and creativity.
[Dick] I’m working on a book about a very
significant concert ukulele, and I’m pretty
excited about this. In 1926, a prominent ukulele
player named Richard Konter signed up for
Admiral Byrd’s expedition to the North Pole.
He took his Martin ukulele with him and was
the sole source of entertainment on the ship.
Konter solicited signatures from Admiral Byrd,
Floyd Bennett, the entire crew of the USS
Chantier that went to the North Pole, and the
crews of the Italia and the Norge (many of
whom died in the crash of the Italia). It is also
signed by President Calvin Coolidge, Thomas
Edison, and may other dignitaries of the day.
We’ve done a tremendous amount of research
on the instrument to identify all the signatures.
Because so many of them are faded, we did
spectral light imagery on the ukulele at the
Mar Apr 2017
look back at this time period
Obviously, the Martin Guitar Company is one
of the most iconic guitar builders in the world,
but I wonder where the company would be
without a tenacious driving creative force such
as Dick Boak? From his early days designing
and building guitars, to heading the advertising
side of Martin, the almost accidental creation
of the Artist Relations Department, and finally
his dedicated work in the Martin Museum
and Archives. Martin guitars would certainly
have continued creating instruments without
Boak, but the partnerships and friendships he
developed with high profile musicians gained
Martin more attention than any advertisement
could ever achieve. Dick Boak has been a
contagious artistic force of nature and the guitar
world is a better place thanks to his passion for
the instruments and its players.
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