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Playing bluegrass on his ‘own terms’
ED MATTHEWS / Staff
Jon Garon, owner of My Favorite Guitars, one of the nation's most successful online sellers of Martin Guitars, stands in his store with his 1959 Martin D28 on Tuesday, June 24, 2008. Garon has a passion for Bluegrass music and plays with many Bluegrass stars, such as Clay Hess, who will perform this weekend in Naples.
Submitted photo
Jon Garon plays with Clay Hess during a concert at the Hey Theater in Minneapolis, Mn., in 2005. Garon jokingly says he's played with Hess, his longtime friend, millions of times.
Submitted photo
Jon Garon, left, Clay Hess, center left, Jack Lawrence, center right, and John Wheat play together during Music at the Mission in West Milford, N.J. in 2007.
Bluegrass Extravaganza
- Where: Norris Community Center, 755 8th Avenue South, Naples, Fl
- Cost: $8
- Age limit: All ages
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Jon Garon’s life in music has kind of come full circle.
In the late ’60s and early ’70s, he spent a good deal of time traveling around the country playing backup guitar for a host of folk and bluegrass acts.
“Including John Denver, before anyone knew who he was,” he says with a wry smile.
And now, more than 20 years after leaving the instability of the music industry for a more anchored existence in the advertising industry and online guitar sales, he once again finds himself traveling the country playing backup guitar for folk and bluegrass acts.
But this time there’s a twist.
Garon, 60, isn’t doing it for a living. In fact, he often takes a loss.
And he isn’t doing it for recognition, learning a long time ago that he wasn’t ever going to be a leading man.
He’s doing it because he loves it.
“I get to play with people who I respect and admire and play music with my friends,” he says. “All that other stuff doesn’t really matter.”
On Friday, Garon will play with some of his favorite musicians, including two-time Grammy Award winner Clay Hess and bluegrass prodigies the Walker Brothers, as part of a bluegrass concert at the Norris Center.
Working with local bluegrass promoters, Garon is bringing in the guys he plays with on a regular basis. It just so happens those guys are highly regarded in the bluegrass circle.
The hope is that some bigger named artists will buoy a monthly Norris Center show, which local aficionados are hoping will help fill the void left when a weekly showcase was canceled after the bar hosting it went under.
Keeping bluegrass afloat in Naples isn’t too difficult, Garon says.
“There’s a good group of 150 dedicated fans that come out to these shows,” he says. “But we’re trying to build on that.”
And in doing so, Garon, who owns the online guitar store My Favorite Guitars, is hoping to help further the careers of his friends. Even for a Grammy winner like Hess, playing bluegrass isn’t very lucrative work.
“I learned a long time ago that you aren’t going to make any money in the music business unless you are Kenny Rogers or something,” Garon says. “And in bluegrass there’s even less money. With the Walker Brothers, their dad is a successful dentist, so they do a lot of their shows for free just because they love playing.”
Garon books and plays in the shows with Hess or Jack Lawrence because he loves the music. He doesn’t take any money, hoping instead that the gig will help keep musicians whom he greatly admires in the business.
“There’s some beneficial symbiosis,” he says. “They give us some credibility in the guitar market. It benefits the company to have these associations.”
But if you ask him really why he does it, money and recognition don’t really matter.
It’s about getting back to the feeling of being a Minneapolis high school kid playing Kingston Trio songs with his buddy Dave Rivkin, who later went on to produce albums by Prince and Janet Jackson. Or to his early 20s, when hopping from town to town, sleeping on floors and seeing the country was glamorous.
And he’s getting to do it his way.
“I had this fear that I’d be doing acoustic shows and the Bread, Wine and Cheese shop, so I got out of the music business,” he says. “Now I get to play again, but now I get to do it on my own terms.”
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Bluegrass Extravaganza
What: A bluegrass concert featuring the Walker Brothers, Clay Hess, Jerry Salley and more.
When: 7 p.m. Friday
Where: The Norris Center, 755 Eighth Ave. S
Admission: $8
Info: (239) 287-2035 or 530-7425
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