Rockie Lynne has his adopted family to thank for their support during his early acoustic guitar journey, but it turns out he already had a passion for six-strings running through his veins – something he found out after he finally met his biological father as an adult.
His 2006 self-titled debut album saw the country music ace arrive on the scene in style, with a score of hits including Lipstick breaking into the Billboard country charts. The success came after an atypical childhood, though.
“I was abandoned as an infant, so I did not know who my parents were,” he tells Guitar World in a new, soon-to-be-published interview.
As for how he started on his guitar-playing journey, Lynne remembers, “A man came to the orphanage where I lived and played for us kids. He sang and played traditional folk songs in a thumb-picking style, and I was hooked. I began to dream about having a guitar, and soon it was all I could think about.”
Then, when he was an adult, Lynne made a fascinating discovery about his birth father – and it led to him getting hold of what he now considers to be his most cherished guitar.
“I met my biological father as an adult through a DNA test and was surprised to find that he had been infatuated with the guitar his entire life as well,” he reveals. “He worked as a truck driver, played guitar, and sang every weekend with his band around the Southeast.
“His prized possession was a 1972 [Martin] D-35 that he played for all those years. Shortly before he passed away, he gave it to me. I cherish his memory and his guitar every day when I play it. I wrote My Father’s Guitar in his honor. It is indeed my most important piece of gear.”
The song, released in March last year, tells the story of the instrument and the generational passing-of-the-torch it signifies. It’s one of a run of single releases that coincided with a documentary film, Rockie Lynne: Where I Belong, which charts his career.
Martin guitars are so often steeped in history. Joe Bonamassa's pre-war acoustic is the only one in his sizable collection that he's “scared to play”, while Eric Clapton was moved to tears when he sold the 1974 000-28 he wrote Wonderful Tonight on. Lynne’s Martin has a very different kind of history behind it – and it's a touching one at that.
Rockie Lynne’s full interview with Guitar World will be published in full soon.
