At the Joe Hill Centennial Celebration, Rolf Hägglund asked “What if?” What if Joe Hill hadn’t died. Would he ever have visited Sweden again? If he had, would he have bounced his brother’s grandchildren on his knee and taught them songs?
The Hägglund family is still musical. Lovisa Samuelsson, Rolf’s niece and Joe’s great-grandniece, performed at the September 5th concert in Salt Lake City.
Rolf claims he no longer plays guitar, but he is a guitar-maker. He so wants to see Joe Hill’s love poems set to music that he’s offered one of his own handmade guitars to the songwriter who wins the Joe Hill’s Last and Final Song contest.
Are you into nerdy guitar details?
- The guitar body is made of weathered pine, hollowed out with a maple back.
- Neck is maple with a rosewood fretboard.
- Pickups are one strat single coil, one P-90, and one humbucker. All three are made by Johan Lundgren. He is a Swede and one of the world´s best pickup makers.
- Tuners are by Gotoh and the bridge is by Stewmac.
Visit Rolf at ProGuitar. If you are near Stockholm, you can attend his guitarmaking classes.
Passing the Guitar
Until the guitar is given to the songwriting contest winner on November 19th, a few guitar players in and around the Joe Hill Organizing Committee are passing it around to see how it plays. We’ll post their reviews here.
