Entertainment
VINTAGE VIBES
Frank Phelps’ 1973 Les Paul Gibson
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STORY BY CONNYE GRIFFIN + PHOTOGRAPHY BY AL GRIFFIN
e is Frank Phelps. Jim is Jim Biggs. Both play vintage Gibson guitars, and both play songs from a vintage era, the 1960s and 1970s, when melodies waxed smooth and flowed from musician down to dance floors and up to full hearts. On a warm late summer day as the Shootout wound down, Me and Jim revived those musical moves at Lake Burger. A couple swayed to the Bossa Nova beat of “The Girl from Ipanema” performed at “conversational volume.” Patrons heard and congratulated Me and Jim between songs, each praising the melodies so familiar, rendered anew on those classic guitars. Frank’s favorite vintage guitar is a 1973 Les Paul Gibson
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LAKE LIFESTYLES // JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021
in patent-leather black. He bought it new and still thinks it’s one of the finer instruments he’s ever owned. On it, he plays chords harmonizing with the melody and taps a foot showing he still loves the rhythms of the day. Frank not only plays guitar, he also plays the mandolin, just two stringed instruments he began learning to master at the age of 7. Born into a family band in which Mom, Dad, brothers, and sisters played, it was natural that Frank follow them into music. In contrast, Jim was a late-starter. He didn’t pick up a guitar until age 14. Still, on that Shootout day in August, Jim was playing a candy-apple red Gibson guitar, his fingers moving deftly up and down the neck to bring the melody to life.
