After a tornado recently swept through Laurel County, Kentucky, and caused major devastation in its wake, a local music store is playing its part in helping the town get back on its feet by salvaging and repairing guitars pulled from the debris free of charge.
Mountain Sound Guitar Works, based out of London, KY, is operated by husband and wife duo Logan and Ashley Powell. They were left heartbroken by the tragic impact of the tornado, and so have decided to use their business and repair skills to good use and lift spirits.
The Powells, who are also selling T-shirts to raise funds for his project – which will see guitars either repaired or replaced – want to spread hope through an affected community.
“It doesn’t do it justice, seeing it on a screen versus standing in the middle of it,” Logan Powell tells Lex18. “I felt very small.”
He had posted a photo of a broken and bruised acoustic guitar surrounded by rubble on social media, leading to the project’s founding.
“I took this photo, and it kinda caught me: this broken guitar amongst all this rubble. Someone [then] recognized it and reached out,” he explains. But instead of handing it back to its rightful owner in such a sorry state, he fixed it first. Many more storm-ravaged guitars have received his TLC since, and he hasn’t charged anyone for his services.
Sadly, not all stories have ended happily. He tells Lex18 that one resident lost all his electric guitars in the storm, including two he regularly played in church. One was found “absolutely smashed”, and the other is yet to be recovered.
For those whose beloved instruments have been lost or rendered irreparable, Mountain Sound Guitar Works has partnered with the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame to arrange replacements.
“There are times when you can’t put into words how you feel; sometimes music can say that for you,” Ashley believes, with Logan adding that their restoration works are “helping [the community] tremendously with healing and processing.”
Logan adds that playing guitar in times of strife like this is “therapeutic” and he wants those players separated from their instruments to experience such a feeling once more.
Readers can support the initiative by ordering a T-shirt from Mountain Sound Guitar Works.
Extreme weather phenomena often put guitars at risk. Iron Maiden’s Adrian Smith and Primus’ Larry ‘Ler’ LaLonde were among those to lose their homes and instruments to the LA wildfires earlier this year, and Keith Urban had to rebuild his entire guitar collection after the devastating floods that hit Nashville in 2010.
Elsewhere, Jared James Nichols has been restoring a gorgeous 1975 Les Paul Custom after its original owner died while playing it as hurricane Katrina swept through New Orleans. It comes after his success restoring Dorothy, a 1952 LP torn to pieces by a tornado.
