Comeaux Collection: The Fretted Instruments of Dr. Tommy Comeaux

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Comeaux Collection: The Fretted Instruments of Dr. Tommy Comeaux

by Dave Hussong, with photographs by Jim France

Watch Tommy's friends make music using the magnificent instruments in this collection.

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About the book

Dr. Tommy Comeaux collected some of the most beautiful and valuable instruments ever created—exquisite guitars inlaid with shimmering abalone and mother-of-pearl; mandolins sculpted from highly figured, exotic hardwoods; and fretted instruments painstakingly crafted by late, legendary artisans like Orville Gibson, Lloyd Loar, John D’Angelico, and James D’Aquisto.

The Lafayette, Louisiana, pathologist toured the world playing mandolin, dobro, and electric bass in the Grammy-winning, progressive Cajun group BeauSoleil. He’d been collecting instruments for 20 years when he was killed while riding his bicycle in 1997.

In this beautiful, full-color, deluxe volume, Comeaux Collection presents 126 instruments photographed in meticulous detail by Jim France with descriptions by author and accomplished musician David R. Hussong. In addition to the historic acoustics, in these pages you will find Gibson guitars and mandolin-family instruments. There are archtop guitars from the big band era, steel-bodied Hawaiian guitars of the 1920s and ‘30s; Fender and Gibson solid-body electrics from the 1950s and ‘60s.

Serving as a tribute and celebration of Comeaux, this volume weaves in loving tales of memorable musical moments shared both at home and on the road by interconnected friends, including Jerry Douglas, Sonny Landreth, Michael Doucet, Eric Johnson, and Tim O’Brien.

About the author

Dave Hussong is a musician, writer and proprietor of Fretware Guitars, an internationally known vintage guitar business he started in 1978, and a longtime contributor to Vintage Guitar Magazine.

An authority on vintage instruments as well as blues recordings, he has hosted “Shakin’ Dave Hussong’s Hall of Fame Blues” program on WYSO Radio in Dayton, Ohio for 37 years, has taught a course about the history of blues at the University of Dayton, and is lead guitarist of the Lo Rent Blues All-Stars.

About the Photographer

Jim France is a commercial photographer working in Naples, Florida and Colombia, South America. To capture the full beauty of these instruments he shot with a Mamiya RB67 camera in 2 ¼” by 2 ¾” film format with Norman P2000 strobe lights, with 22” beauty dish, a 36” soft box and a 6” freznel spotlight.

Jim recalls “Dave contacted me by phone and wanted me to photograph a collection of guitars he had recently acquired. I was not familiar with Tommy Comeaux and was not a musician but I certainly wanted to do the work. Some days later he brought the instruments and we spread them out on the studio floor. My jaw dropped. I saw exquisite pieces of art with their lines, curves, wear, details and they amazed me! The following session we shot on the floor of Dave’s store in Franklin, Ohio, formerly a historic bank. I’ll never forget him opening the vault in the basement and it filled with fretted instruments.

Dave’s dream from the beginning was that this collection be published in book form. I am so glad that after all these years his vision is coming to light. I am proud to have been a part of it.”

144 Pages | Hardcover | 11" x 8.5" | ISBN: 9781946160621