Chapter 1

He was born Jedidiah King and he tried to live up to the name. His father was David King, a vagabond country artist known for his hard drinking and living, at least for most of his career. Jed’s father put everything into his music and sang as hard in the small honky-tonks he started out playing as the arenas that hosted him toward the end of his life onstage. He sang and tumbled his way into the hearts of fans worldwide. Men on tractors in the heartland sang along. Women in ­trailers and mansions echoed the words to “Can’t Hold On.” He was just a poor man frightened of his shadow, but he learned how to turn his fear into tunes with a message that cut a path and made a connection.

David King gave his son two things other than his name—a love to build things with his hands and a desire to write songs with his heart. Jed had picked up the hammer and saw like his father long before he picked up the guitar. But once he found those six strings, there was no letting go.

He’d watched his father play the guitar since he was young. Watched the placement of his fingers on the strings and the way he strummed or picked. It was as if the instrument were an extension of the man, and every time his father grabbed that instrument, he came alive. He could be dead tired, nodding off on the couch, and then he’d see the guitar in the corner and make his way over and pick it up. His eyes danced as he worked on some new tune or reworked an old one.

Watching his dad’s band work together as a team was a holy experience. Something about the process of creating music made Jed want the same.

A man at the music store in their town who didn’t know Jed or his musical lineage had let him go into the back room and play the cherry-red Guild Starfire that hung on the wall. Not play it, actually, just hold it. The man told him everything about the guitar—the wood, the craftsmanship, what made it the best. And then he picked up the guitar and began a riff Jed could hardly believe. The guy played with his ear down on the side of the instrument, listening to its inner workings, and he played from memory a song that took Jed’s breath away.

“How do you learn to play it like that?”

“Take lessons. Learn the chords and runs.” He held up the guitar. “But music doesn’t come from here. You can’t learn that from anybody on the planet. Music comes from here.” He tapped his chest. “It’s something you either have or you don’t. Not having it is bad. But having it and not using it is worse.”

He showed Jed G, C, and D, then gave him a chord chart from behind the counter and told him to come back in a week. Jed went straight home and found his father’s guitar, the one someone special had given him with the crown emblem carved on it. He had written some of his biggest songs on it and said it brought him luck.

Jed picked it up and spread his fingers into the G position, though he found it easier to put the ring finger on the first string instead of the pinkie. He played and it sounded close, but he wasn’t pressing hard enough. Then he moved to C and it took him several seconds just to get his fingers down on the right strings and the right frets. How could players possibly change as fast as they did?

He moved to D, just three fingers and strumming four strings, but that was the hardest. He’d seen players move all the way up the neck of the guitar and put their fingers over the strings in a bar chord. Or they played the lead way up the neck one or two strings at a time. But how?

“I wondered if you’d ever pick it up,” his father said behind him.

He walked in with those big cowboy boots clacking across the hardwood. Jed swallowed hard and held the guitar out in an apology.

“I saw you the other day when we were working outside. Putting your thumb across the strings. You interested?”

Jed nodded.

“Where’d you learn the chords?” his father said.

“Guy down at the music store showed me.”

His father’s beard had grown a little longer and his hair was wavy as he sat on the bed. He wore a T-shirt with a pocket, not the normal stage getup people associated with him, and this felt good, natural, to Jed.

“Did he tell you to use that ring finger for the G?”

“No, he said to use the pinkie.”

“Good man. He’s right.”

“But it’s easier to use the ring finger for me.”

His father smiled. “That’s how I play it too. Sometimes I work the pinkie in and use the ring to play the second string right there. Try that.”

When Jed couldn’t get it, his father took the guitar and showed him—not impatiently, but like a man who tinkers with cars might twist the radiator cap and say, “Lefty loosey, righty tighty.”

“Can you show me some more?” Jed said.

“Sure.”

The next morning Jed woke up to find a Guild guitar at the foot of his bed. He was playing it when his dad came downstairs to the breakfast table. “Fellow at the music store said you took a real shine to the hollow body he had down there. This one doesn’t need an amp. You like it?”

Jed could hardly contain the grin. “I love it.”

His father wiped the sleep out of his eyes and coughed, then poured milk on some cereal. “No pressure with that. I’m not giving you the guitar to make you follow in your old man’s footsteps. There’s a lot of places these feet have gone I hope you never go.”

“Like where?”

“We’ll have that conversation. What I mean is, I’m not expecting you to make a career out of this. Unless you want to. You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’d be good, you know.”

“Sir?”

“You’d be good at singing. I’ve heard you.”

“Yes, sir.”

That was all it took and Jed was off and running. Funny how a few words over a bowl of cereal could change a boy’s life. Funny how a well-tuned guitar could too.