Sadly, we’ve recently lost two more huge names in the world of music, both tangential to the harp guitar. Each deserves their own tribute, so please forgive me for combining them here for expediency.

Mickie Zekley (1946-2022) passed away peacefully on October 28, 2022, survived by his wife Elizabeth and children Marina and Corwin. (Sadly, I only learned of this last summer from a mutual friend.) I had long been aware of Mickie’s stunning “Lark in the Morning” catalogs, though never managed to the visit the store in Mendocino nor see his own remarkable collection of rare and exotic instruments. Filled with virtually every type of folk, world, antique and early music instrument imaginable, “LIM” was a fantasy world for us budding multi-instrumentalists, of which Mickie was second to none.

I believe we may have first spoken in the early 1990s when I was in the midst of my “A Christmas Collection” project and bought my crumhorn from him (I remember him playing it over the phone to ensure that it was working well). He subsequently hooked me up with David Zasloff for my album project when I asked him to recommend any shakuhachi players in Los Angeles.

When preparing my early “Players” page on the Harpguitars.net web site in 2004, I corresponded with him again regarding his own harp guitar use. Yes, he had played his vintage Dyer (including the sub-basses) on a couple of his old albums, so he’s been on the site since inception.

I never knew until now that Mickie – with multi-instrumentalist partner Michael Hubbert – also recorded a 1982 LP for Kicking Mule!

In the harp guitar community, Mickie is of course known as the instigator of the “Lark in the Morning Harp Guitar.” I don’t recall how early this was (way before my time), but he left his Dyer with his Pacheco, Mexico supplier in hopes of creating something affordable. In batches of a dozen, this was the first inexpensive “mass-produced” harp guitar ever produced and a godsend to those curious about the instrument. While their “copy” didn’t remotely approach a Dyer in construction or aesthetics, it did the job and was a fun, loud instrument; there have been many amateur and professional harp guitarists who cut their teeth on an LIM.

With nothing comparable on the market (and they remain way better than the cheap Chinese instruments sold on Amazon), I sold many of them via my Harp Guitar Music web site, both secondhand and new instruments supplied by Mickie, when I could get them.

If these instruments were Mickie’s only legacy, that would have been enough, but of course his life was infinitely more, with his Lark in the Morning Camps and the hundreds of friends he and his wife helped and inspired for many decades. I deeply regret never driving up there to visit in person.

Mickie, with a rare Dahlman-Akeson harp guitar, another image I just discovered, which by a curious coincidence relates directly to the next late friend…

Paul Brett, well-known and loved U.K. guitar player, who developed a successful line of new “Vintage Guitars,” passed away on the morning of Jan 31, 2024. His wife Michele Breeze wrote on his Facebook page, “I am sorry to have to tell you all that after some weeks of terrible illness Paul died this morning of total heart failure there are no words. Michele xxxx”

Indeed, what can one say of such loss? Our words of sympathy only go so far. So, we speak of our memories of him. And, while mine may have been too brief, they were epic – and in the harp guitar field, no less.

I first heard of Paul over ten years ago when he emailed me about hooking up at NAMM. A collector with an interested in harp guitars, he hoped to do an interview with me for U.K.’s Acoustic Guitar magazine. And so, in January 2012, I grabbed three of my harp guitars at random and went down to Anaheim, CA and met Paul in his hotel room. (The article and some images did appear in the magazine; I never posted them as I looked like I had just woken up…which I had!)

I found Paul to be a kindred spirit, with a slightly longer – and more famous – life in rock bands than I, with one foot in the modern music business and one in vintage instruments. His wife Michele was a warm, wonderful and extremely talented woman in her own right, and I had always hoped to introduce her (and Paul) to my wife Jaci. Alas, a regretted missed opportunity.

Michele and Paul at Namm in 2012 – two of the loveliest people I’ve ever met.

One of the instruments I had taken along was this one, patented by Dahlman in 1892 and built by Akeson in Minneapolis:

While Paul loved my Maccaferri, he was absolutely smitten with this one, one of the more interesting harp guitar inventions of the 1890s heyday. That curious curved sub-bass string attachment? That was for the player to pluck them with their thumb! On my blog about it, I mentioned how Paul found this both easy and brilliant, and perfect for the “text generation,” as “they are naturally growing up with superior thumb-plucking skills due to all their incessant thumb-texting!”

He was right. And to prove it, he actually had one built, as a potential addition to his “Vintage” guitar line.

Man, I would’ve loved to have seen the “Thumb-buster” in that line-up! The magazine did a story of the work in progress:

Alas, Paul never put it into production, even though demonstrating that it worked quite well. About eight months after he played mine, he picked up his prototype, writing on my blog on Sept 8, 2012: “Just picked up the finished Thumbuster prototype from luthier Richard Meyrick. Rich works out if his workshop just outside Abergavenny, South Wales. He has done a great job in presenting a modern version of this old Americana concept. Sound projection is massive. Made from Welsh oak back and sides, Welsh bog oak bridge and fingerboard, Welsh maple bound and solid spruce top, now going home to North Wales to work out a demo piece to video for the net and the show in London. Will keep updating progress and I hope there will be lots of interest from everyone at the show. My thanks to Gregg for introducing me to this concept and it’s a fascinating one yet fundamental in concept and just by an initial tinker, I can get a great 12 bar groove blues going, just need to get my brain in reverse mode to connect with the left-hand thumb! A special thanks to Chris deMaria at Fishman USA for supplying the matrix system pick up that has contributed to the runaway success of my Paul Brett electro/acoustic 12 string by Vintage.”

Yes, I was stunned that he followed this through, including the promised video. Check it out! (Click image for YouTube video)

Note that he is playing only the neck with his right hand, and the four sub-bass strings only with his left thumb:

As I mentioned, Paul and I shared a love of not only vintage guitars in general, but harp-guitars, lyre guitars, and harp-lutes as well. Here’s part of his wonderful collection:

And a basslaute, Edward Light harp-lute and an unusual lyre guitar:

His Gibson U even won him an award!

Though I never counted Paul as an official “harp guitarist,” he certainly used it from time to time and was perfectly capable of hitting some subs. Rock stars never die, they just keep those photo ops going!

Of course, then there’s this one:

I loved seeing Paul’s old photos of his early 60s days on FB:

I so would have bought these albums!

Yeah, another missed opportunity. Both Paul and Mickie were two key music people whose orbit I was just lucky to find myself in. The stories and fun we might have had! Or perhaps I presume too much… but so glad I got the chance to know them.