The guitar is the iconic instrument of modern popular music. It is portable, it has history, and it will always be hip. But why has the guitar become such a classic? Will Hodgkinson, a wannabe guitar player, whose only experience was an afternoon's bashing on a friend's guitar at the age of sixteen, set out to find out. Along the way he hoped to teach himself a few chords too. His goal was to get good enough to play before a live audience in just six months--even if it threatened to drive his wife and family to the point of insanity. His trip becomes an odyssey: He chats with British folk legend Bert Jansch, ex-Smith's guitarist Johnny Marr, and reclusive folk guitar legend Davey Graham, as well as Sufjan Stevens, PJ Harvey, and Cat Power's chanteuse Chan Marshall. He travels to America and with a hurricane brewing visits Roger McGuinn from the Byrds. He travels to the Deep South, looking for the spirit of Robert Johnson, and drops in on T-Model Ford, an old bluesman living in Mississippi. Gloriously readable and highly amusing, Guitar Man is classic obsessional nonfiction for a nation of guitar freaks. "General-interest collections will love it...A fine leisure reader's choice." -- Midwest Book Review , March 2007 "Music fans and anyone whose instrumental expertise stops at the kazoo will take inspiration from his tale." -- UTNE , June 2007 "Tells Hodgkinson's...frequently hilarious story, and it reads like a book-length Dave Barry newspaper column." -- Dirty Linen , June/July 2007 "This amiable and informative memoir will appeal to music lovers, guitar aficionados, and budding musician alike...Recommended." -- Library Journal , 12/15/06 Will Hodgkinson has written for the Guardian, Mojo , and the Daily Telegraph , among other publications. He lives with his wife and two children in London.