Replacing The Irreplaceable

Concert will fund dulcimer for musicians’ friend

Losing a musical instrument “is kind of like something’s been ripped off your body,” says musician and music lover Mike Shirkey. “It’s something you take for granted, then one day you reach for it, and it’s not there.”

In this case, Shirkey not only misses the dulcimer he built many years ago, he worries about what happened to it, “how it’s going to end its life. It was a real special instrument.”

Getting the dulcimer back isn’t likely. It was stolen from Shirkey’s Goshen home while he was at a funeral in Stuttgart.

“Somebody kicked in my back door,” he explains. The burglars took an antique shotgun that had belonged to Shirkey’s grandfather, a crossbow, a muzzle loader and the dulcimer.

“I think the reason they grabbed it was because it was in a soft case that resembled a gun case,” Shirkey says. “I had other instruments they didn’t take.”

Last year was a tough one for Shirkey, says musician Emily Kaitz. He moved out of the GoodFolk house on Block Avenue and restructured the music series he’s hosted for many years. He had health problems. And then his home was robbed.

“Many of us musicians just felt bad for him,” Kaitz says. So they organized a fundraiser, which is set for Thursday.

“We thought about our ideal acts - and we gotthem,” Kaitz says happily.

Headlining the show, part of Shirkey’s new Pickin’ Post series, will be Trout Fishing in America, Still on the Hill, Kaitz and Outside the Lines and the Mike Sumler Trio with John Johnston & J.T.

Huff. Each group will play about a 25-minute set, and Kaitz plans to get Shirkey up on stage at the Fayetteville Underground, too, with his other dulcimer.

It’s a good dulcimer, he says, just not THE dulcimer.

The one he lost was made of local catalpa on top, with cherry sides and back, and “by the luck of the draw, had this great tone,” he remembers. “I’ve played a lot of dulcimers from all around the country, and it just happened that this one was loud. I could play with a guitar player without having to be amplified. And it had a really rich tone; people were always impressed by it.”

A new dulcimer, Shirkey says, “will have its own special qualities.” It’s Kaitz’s plan that it will be crafted by Bayard Blain of 3 Penny Acre,an accomplished luthier.

Blain studied at a luthier school on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, in 2003 and moved to Fayetteville in 2004, where he continued learning woodworking from Edward Hejtmanek. He says he’s happy to be able to help a longtime friend.

“We’re not necessarily going to try to replicate” Shirkey’s instrument, says Blain, who will be crafting his first-ever dulcimer after building everything from guitars to mandolins.

“We’re going to use some of the design concepts, but if anything, I’d like to build a louder, nicer one. I have quite a collection of really nice tone woods, and I think I can make him a really nice dulcimer.”

Kaitz reckons the dulcimer will cost around $1,400, and she thinks at $20 a ticket, the fundraiser ought to take care of most of it. The Fayetteville Underground space can seat about 80 people, she says, so she expects the show to sell out.

Shirkey is “overwhelmed.”

“Emily worked her magic,” he says simply.

Whats Up, Pages 13 on 02/15/2013

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