Ed Stilley, a simple homesteader of Hogscald Hollow, AR, is a man of strong, pervasive faith. One evening in 1979, deeply troubled and with few options, Mr. Stilley found himself in need of protection and fell asleep with a gun on his lap. In a dream God spoke to him. According to Stilley the Lord promised to “take care of the matter” as long as Ed would make guitars and give them to children for free. When Stilley awoke he put his gun on the shelf and went to work. He had played guitars, but had never made any. Nor did he have any of the training, tools or supplies he would need. But he believed that, as promised, God would provide. A true Ozarkian, Stilley utilized his common sense and pragmatic genius to find ways to build his instruments and instill them with a resonance unlike any others. With access only to thicker slabs of hard woods not commonly used in making guitars and lacking the equipment necessary to machine them down, Stilley had to conjure imaginative ways to coax the sound out of his instruments and bend the wood into usable and unique shapes. He inserted circular saw blades to create harmonics. He used door springs to construct an utterly unique internal reverb system. He connected metal truss rods in the necks with bolts at the top and pot lids in the body to create a most unusual circle of oscillating tonality. (see X-ray image) For more than 2 decades Stilley would diligently craft his guitars and give them away for free, just as he had promised. He stopped only when his deteriorating health made the work impossible. More than 200 instruments later it would appear that “the matter” remained resolved as God’s promise was the only protection Ed Stilley would ever need again. truefaiththebook
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 14:29:43 +0000
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