Unsponsored Content: Buy This Guitar, Play Some Great Music, Help The Family Of A TTAC Alum, Write Your Own Ticket For Adventure

It was in late March that I found myself among the disinfectant smells and cracked tiles of an oncology clinic in western New York. This was the clinic where TTAC contributor and long-time member of the B&B, David Drucker, lost his fight with cancer. This was the clinic where he faced his final shots at chemo, the poison burning his arm, the duct-taped old vinyl recliners in a row, the enforced stillness that must have been agonizing for a man whose quick fingers on the guitar and brilliant singing voice entertained everyone he met. In these dismal corridors, in the long walk from the cracked asphalt of the parking lot, in the elevator that creaked and groaned on the way up to the third floor. I didn’t get there in time. I arrived in western New York to find him already gone, his passing announced without fanfare by his son on Facebook along with a link to a video of his last public folk-music performance. It would have been the first time I met him in person; I’d “known” him for years through TTAC and Facebook, but I never shook the man’s hand, never heard his voice. This would have been the first time.

David would chide me any time I bought a new acoustic guitar. “Why didn’t you go to Maury’s?” he’d say. “It makes NO SENSE to buy a Martin from anywhere else.” Well, today Maury’s is selling some of the guitars that David owned and played. The proceeds will benefit his family, which suffered financially from the full-throttle assault of his cancer and its necessary treatments. So I’d like you to take David’s advice as well, and I’ll do my best to make it worthwhile.

The first guitar for sale is David’s favorite Martin 000-15M. I already have one, but if this doesn’t sell pretty quickly I’ll probably buy it just for sentimental purposes. There’s no sense in me having two of these fantastic all-mahogany American-made six-strings, however. If you’re a guitarist, you know that these are justly famous for the balance of their tone and the tasteful, earthy urgency they bring to both fingerstyle and flatpicked lines. Plus it’s selling well below retail.

If a TTACer buys this guitar or any of David’s other items, I’ll offer you a choice of a couple side benefits:

• A day’s worth of coaching at any open trackday in the United States or Canada, and I’ll cover my own expenses getting there. Subject to availability and cost, and so on.
• Your choice of anything from my reasonably deep collection of autoshow/press event swag.
• The strap of your choice from the folks at Couch.
• A full day in my home studio, drinking my liquor and hammering my collection of 130+ vintage and modern guitars through everything from a ’65 Gibson whiteface Skylark to a Mesa Private Reserve.
• A space on TTAC to rant about anything you want for up to a thousand words, as long as you don’t get me fired or get TTAC sued.

All proceeds from the sale of David’s guitars will go to his family; Maury’s isn’t taking a commission. Thanks for reading this… and I suppose that now’s as good a time as any to take a moment of silence for David. Godspeed, Mr. Drucker. You were one of the good guys.