If you hear a jangly 12-string guitar, you probably get an earworm like “Turn Turn Turn” or “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Roger McGuinn is responsible for that. As a youth in Chicago, he was exposed to the banjo of Bob Gibson. Roger’s wife, Camilla McGuinn, tells the story  on The Roger McGuinn Blog:

“In the winter of 1957, Jim’s (Roger’s) music teacher at the Latin School of Chicago, Miss Ganter, invited her friend Bob Gibson to perform for her students. Jim attended out of duty but didn’t expect much from another required school assembly. As he was clowning with his group of friends, his eye caught a glimpse of an instrument head stock poking through the door of the auditorium. It appeared to be a guitar and suddenly his interest was piqued.

(Miss Ganter’s music class at a student’s home. Roger is third from the right.)

Bob Gibson strolled on stage not with a guitar, but with a 5-string long necked banjo. At this revelation, Jim wanted to find the nearest exit, but after only one song of intricate finger picking and a personal story about the song Jim’s interest reawakened. He was amazed at the energy and sound that the Banjo created in the hands of an artist who believed in the instrument and the music. Bob finished his set of songs and left the building. Jim immediately found Miss Ganter and interrogated her about the music and style of Bob Gibson.

Miss Ganter told her student that it was folk music and if he was really interested in learning more about it, that a new school had just opened within walking distance of his house, called The Old Town School of Folk Music.” (You can read the rest of the story here.)

The freshly-obsessed young McGuinn restrung a guitar with banjo strings, “put a nail in the neck at the seventh fret and tucked the fifth string under it.” Eventually he took on the 12-string as his signature sound.

We at FolkWORKS learned that he’d be playing the Soka Performing Arts Center in Aliso Viejo, California, and we begged for an interview. Okay, it was me. I begged.

I was so stoked because I wanted to tell you about The Folk Den Project. This is a beautiful preservation of traditional folk music – not just preserving, but making the history accessible. In Roger McGuinn’s words:

Silhouette photo by Camilla

In November of 1995 I began a project for the preservation of the music I love, Folk Music. Each month I would record a song, print the lyrics and chords, add a personal note and put it on my web site, mcguinn.com. I wanted everyone to have the opportunity to learn the songs and to be able to sing them with their families and friends, so downloads were offered free of charge. The original recordings were 11 KHz 8-bit . monophonic WAV files, far below CD quality. I have re-recorded those songs in 24-bit 44.1 KHz Stereo. To commemorate the 10 year anniversary of the FOLK DEN, this compilation contains 100 of my favorite songs from the project with many of the original notes.

This project is a true community service. Please take some time and wallow in old classics like Dry Bones, St. James Infirmary, Streets of Laredo; things you may have never heard like King Kong Kitchie Ki Me O. You can delve into the backstories of songs like The Twelve Days of Christmas or Molly Malone. Each track is a patch in the quilt of America; our cast-iron history. You didn’t think about Pete Seeger while listening to The Byrds, did you?

But every workingman’s song that went into Rock’n’Roll is our legacy, too: the music tells other stories you won’t read in history books. Songs are like finding old letters – you can hear what was important to listeners of that time.

me: Peg & Awl – I love that you brought this song to light. Explain why it’s important to preserve the backstories of these old songs.

RMcG: I feel the old songs and stories behind them are worth preserving because they’re like Victorian architecture. It’s regularly torn down to put up glass and steel buildings which are much less aesthetically pleasing.

me: Tell me a love story: the cheapest guitar you ever loved. Do you still own it?

RMcG: I recently bought a Jasmine guitar that cost less than $100.00 and sounds beautiful. It’s made by the Takamine company in Indonesia.