The Americans it seems have beaten the Germans again. This time, the event was for the Guinness World record of most guitar players playing simultaneously or as it is recorded in the Guinness book, the largest guitar ensemble. Until this past Sunday, August 23rd, 1,802 participants in Leinfelden-Echterdingen Germany held the record. The German participants, led by Andreas Vockrodt, played 'Smoke on the Water' simultaneously led by the band 'Party Blues in Bb' on June 26th, 2007. The Germans had taken the title when they broke the record that was previously held by 1,683 guitar players playing Smoke on the Water in Kansas City on June 3rd 2007.
The record came back to the USA when a crowd of 1857 guitar pickers braved the 100+ degree heat in Luckenbach, Texas to bring the record back to the USA and more importantly, to Texas. The idea for breaking the record came up when organizers from the Kerrville Folk Festival got together with some folks from Cheatham Street Warehouse, a music venue in San Marcos, Texas to talk about a potential fundraiser for The Welcome Home Project. Once the project was a go, progress for the event was posted on the Voices of a Grateful Nation website. Visitors to the site got periodic updates on the event including the number of signed registrants. As the day of the event drew near, there was still some doubt if the event was going to bring in the amount of guitar players needed to break the record.
The day of the event, there was a steady stream of people that began arriving early in the morning. By 2:00pm, the crowd of guitar players and their friends and family as well as others who had come to listen the some great country music, were all assembled in front of the stage. At around 2:30, the last registered guitar player was counted. The all star band on stage led Gary P Nunn, Monte Montgomery, Jimmy LaFave, john Arthur martinez, and many others got the crowd fired up by announcing that the record had been broken. All that was left was for everyone with a guitar to play simultaneously for 5 minutes. After a quick refresher on how to play the G chord, all 1857 guitar players began playing the Luckenbach Song (Back to the Basics of Love).
The song, which was obviously the only one appropriate for the event, was recorded in 1977 byWaylon Jennings and Willie Nelson and putLuckenbach Texas on the map for good. The small town has never looked back and if the Germans or anyone else tries to take the record back, I’m sure we’ll again be paying a visit to Luckenbach where you can always find a coldShiner Beer and where “Everybody’s Somebody”.
© 2009. Fito Kahn. www.examiner.com.