{"id":324,"date":"2014-05-27T01:05:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-27T01:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/?p=324"},"modified":"2014-05-27T01:05:00","modified_gmt":"2014-05-27T01:05:00","slug":"the-case-of-the-charlie-daniels-tenor-fiddle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/2014\/05\/27\/the-case-of-the-charlie-daniels-tenor-fiddle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Case of the Charlie Daniels Tenor Fiddle"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I was in Nashville not too long ago, and before meeting our parents for dinner, my brother Dave suggested we stop by McKay Used Books<\/a>. After rooting around the DVD section I had a prize find: an un-authorized tell-all of the real story behind American Idol. Score! \u00a050 cents and it was mine.<\/p>\n

But not so fast\u2026since dad didn’t pick up the first time Dave called to confirm 6:30 pm instead of 7:00 pm, Dave suggested we take another 15 minutes to look around.<\/p>\n

Dave: “Have you checked out the musical instruments section?”<\/p>\n

Stephan: “There’s a musical instruments section?”<\/p>\n

Dave: “They don’t usually have a lot of instruments, but it’s fun to look.”<\/p>\n

So I looked–and I was shocked to find a cello-shaped viola case identical to the red one I use to carry A Roadkill Opera<\/strong> sheet music and gear for playing the opera at exhibits. Except this one was gray.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
The red and the gray: twin cello-shaped viola cases set on the sidewalk in front of Lashof Violins in Gaithersburg, Maryland.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since I was exhibiting at the Gaithersburg Book Festival in about a week, I thought the case would be perfect for my table.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
The gray, cello-shaped viola case from McKay’s of Nashville made a fine tabletop display for A Roadkill Opera<\/strong> at the 2014 Gaithersburg Book Festival.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Just one problem–the case had a viola in it. What should I do with it? Was it worth anything? I wanted to know.\u00a0Fortunately, I knew a guy: Mike. Like me, \u00a0Mike has a day job, and he also has a passion for \u00a0bluegrass music. But Mike is not like me in respect to this: he’s got chops, and plays guitar, mandolin, and fiddle, among other things. And though he lives in West Virginia, Mike was in Nashville that day and agreed to take a look at my mystery viola.<\/p>\n

\"Mike<\/a>
Mike checks out the mystery viola while Chuck looks on. Mike also pointed out some mysterious marks on the instrument.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mike concluded that the viola was in pretty good shape and had a good tone. He also noticed that the back of the instrument had been marked with a permanent marker.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
Mike noticed this mark on the back of the instrument. Looking on the internet, the mark appears similar to some signatures of Charlie Daniels.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Once home in Maryland, I looked on the internet and found Charlie Daniels has a signature that looks similar. Since Mike said it was a decent instrument and maybe it had been signed by Charlie Daniels, I figured it would make sense to ask the pros from Dover–that is, Jen and Alicia, the master luthiers at Lashof Violins. \u00a0When they agreed to take a look at it, they said to leave it for a week, and they placed the instrument in one of their humidy-controlled cases.<\/p>\n

\"Alicia<\/a>
Alicia placing the mystery viola in a house case while it is held for evaluation at Lashof Violins.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That would allow me to use the gray cello-shaped fiberglass viola\u00a0case for a tabletop display and the red cello-shaped fiberglass viola case for more visual impact in front of my table. The red really pops in the sun!<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
DJ Choupin hawking If You See Roadkill, Think Opera<\/strong>, at the 2014 Gaithersburg Book Festival. About 22,000 people were estimated to attend the May 17 event. Note the viola cases book-ending the table display.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I came back to Lashof Violins to see what they had found out, there were some real surprises\u2026which I will reveal in my next post.<\/p>\n

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So I was in Nashville not too long ago, and before meeting our parents for dinner, my brother Dave suggested we stop by McKay Used Books. After rooting around the DVD section I had a prize find: an un-authorized tell-all of the real story behind American Idol. Score! \u00a050 cents and it was mine. But … Continue reading The Case of the Charlie Daniels Tenor Fiddle<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":337,"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions\/337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}