Just in case you’re new to the Elle’s Guitars story – they are pre-loved guitars that have been given a new lease of life including a little bit of new unique, quirky character. These are then donated to associations, schools and music teachers or directly to young people (under the age of 18) who would love to play the guitar but cannot justify the expense, or simply don’t have access to one.
Elle Holmes was a bright, beautiful and talented girl who lost her battle, against what she felt was a cruel world, at the age of just 15. In her memory, her mum and friends are finding broken and damaged secondhand guitars and giving them a Derelict Guitars makeover. As befits Elle, I’ve been deliberately trying to make every Elle’s Guitar I send out quirky, original, one-of-a-kind and full of character. It’s not good enough to simply be playable, it’s got to have attitude. The hope is that these guitars might play a small part in opening up a new world of creativity and friends to young people who feel they’re struggling to be heard in an increasingly noisy world.
We’ve sent out about 8 in the UK so far, and now we’ve got a shipment of 9 more that are heading out to Nairobi, Kenya. There will be many more to follow, we hope, and to that end we’ll also be running a raffle to benefit the charitable initiative (and sharing it with charity that is close to the Elle’s Guitars’ project’s heart – PAPYRUS in the UK). I’ve built a custom hand-built high-end guitar that we will raffle throughout July – watch this space!
I had hoped to get the ‘Nairobi Nine’ bundled up and sent off tomorrow morning, but it was always a long-shot that I could kill two birds with one stone (I’m off to France for 5 days at 6am), so they’ll have to wait until next week. But NN8 was finished and QA’d last night and so they’re all ready to be packed up and sent (NN9 is elsewhere, already on loan, but is obviously all done and dusted). This last one is a standard Telecaster that has an open-pored metallic bronze finish and a mahogany etched/engraved pickguard. It needed an entirely new neck, and one new pickup, just needs re-stringing and it’s ready for the rack…
