I don’t know of any other guitar players…with careers as long as Mundy’s…who have had those careers as well documented as his was.

If you go to YouTube…and type in Mundell Lowe, you will find a collection of videos and recordings that just go on and on and on…some of the videos…the old kinescopes...reach back into the 50s…the recordings go back even further. You can see him in almost any setting you can imagine…playing solo guitar…duets with other famous guitar players…trios, quartettes, all-star sextettes…working with jazz bands of different sizes…playing with a big band…conducting a big band playing one of his arrangements…conducting a full orchestra, strings and all, playing something he had written for a movie…playing something he had written for the concert hall…

You’ll find him working with virtually every major jazz artist of that era…Charlie Parker (“Bird”)…Lester Young (“Prez”)…Benny Goodman…Clark Terry…Eddie Shaunessey…George Duvivier…Johnny Smith…Milt Hinton…Red Norvo…the Sauter-Finnegan Orchestra…”Toots” Thielemans…Andre Previn…and with the girl singers…Billie Holiday…Peggy Lee…Sarah Vaughn…Carmen Mcrae…Rosemary Clooney…the cream of the crop…

Same thing with the guys…Sammy Davis, Steve Lawrence, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra…it’s endless.

Then there are the instructional videos…and interviews…that allow you to hear the way he thought…the way he spoke…his “take” on things.

If you would know this man’s musical career…the way he sounded when he played…this master musician, who just happened to choose the guitar as his voice…go to YouTube…it’s all there.

If you would know his life…as he saw it and lived it…in his words…Steve Kinigstein is writing a biography on Mundy. It should be out sometime this year…it will be called “Cotton…or Guitars…I’ve always Picked Something.”

I can’t compete with information on that scale…rather…I would like to paint a picture of Mundy…as I knew him…our association…our friendship.

Few of us ever get to meet our heroes…fewer still ever get to actually work with them…and precious few get to form a friendship that lasts all the way to the end.

We all know that today would have been Mundy’s 96th birthday…tomorrow is my 80th…he was one day...and 16 years older than I was. I ribbed him about it…occasionally. On the day that he turned 80, he was at Stanford University…holding a Master Class. I emailed him and said “I just went to the store to get you a birthday card. They don’t have any 80s…do you want two 40s…or a 50 and a 30?” He diplomatically wrote back…”Mind your own businsess!”

If you grew up in Laurel…60 to 70 years ago…and professed to play the guitar…there was one thing for certain…you would hear the name “Mundell Lowe”…the legend had already started…even then…someone had a cousin who thought they saw him…someone’s friend thinks she met him once…on a Thursday…he’s on the road with Ray McKinley’s band…someone’s sister dated a guy who knew his brother…his sister works at the Hub store…he’s been in the army, but, now he lives in New York…and…wonder of wonders…he reads music!

When I was walking the streets of Laurel…learning to play the guitar…I got to the point where I was good enough to play for the dances…the V.F.W…the Moose Lodge…the American Legion Hut…some of the joints out of town…out on the highway (with the chicken-wire in front of the band…to stop the flying beer bottles). We had just finished playing a dance at one of these establishments one night…I don’t remember where…I was wiping down the strings…putting the guitar in its case…and a man walked up on the stage…an older man…he walked over to me…didn’t say anything…just looked me up and down for a minute. Then he said…in a brogue much thicker than mine…”You play good guitar…boy…but you ain’t no Mundell Lowe.”

I first met Mundy in 1958…on a Mississippi Southern College (remember it used to be called that?) marching band trip…somewhere up north…and we were to be given a free day in New York. I went to see his sister…she worked at the Hub store around on Front Street….and asked her for his phone number. When we got to New York, I called him…introduced myself…and asked if I could buy his lunch…or come to where ever he was working…I just wanted to meet him. He said “How about a “Hit Parade” rehearsal?” So I went to some old hotel in midtown where they were using the ballroom for rehearsals…and watched a three-hour rehearsal of “Your Hit Parade”…for you old people out there, that was Dorothy Collins, Gisele Mackenzie, Johnny Desmond and “Snooky” Lanson… (remember them?)... and an orchestra…full orchestra…strings section and all (musicians speak of that as “40 acres of strings”)…and Mundy, playing guitar!

He had a brand-new guitar…custom made…a “D’Angelico”…he showed it to me…he was terribly proud of it. I wasn’t even allowed to take my guitar into the music department at Southern, at that time…it wasn’t considered a legitimate instrument…and here was Mundy…sitting in the middle of the Hit Parade orchestra…one of the largest orchestras on TV…legitimizing the guitar! I was hooked! That rehearsal is burned into my memory…in living color…there were lots of the players there that day that I would work with later when I moved to New York.

It was exactly where I wanted to be…and exactly what I wanted to be doing!

We kept in touch during the next few years…I’d call just to see what he was doing…he’d just worked with 4 other guitar players on a session…and had one tomorrow with someone’s big band…unbelievably interesting things! Then, in 1964, I called him…and asked if I could come up for 3-4 days…hang out with him…and see if there was a place for me. He told me to “come on”. It’s hard to describe just how busy he was during those years…he was “first call” on so many recording sessions…I went with him from one studio to the next…barely having time to eat…he played on the track of a movie…did an on-screen commercial for Winston cigarettes…then, something with a big orchestra and choir.

On the last night, Barbara fixed dinner for us…later on Mundy and I went to his den…in that huge apartment on 98th street…and played together for the first time…I sight-read some for him…then asked if he thought I could make a living there. He said “Of course, you can…but you have to come to stay…it won’t happen overnight.”

That was really all I needed to hear…I went back home and sold everything I had…except…my guitar. And in June of ’64, I moved to New York.

Mundy was right…it did not happen overnight…but he helped me find work. The first job he got for me was 3 or 4 weeks with Rosemary Clooney…ain’t a bad start! Then he called and said he had a Broadway show for me…in fact, he had two…I could have my choice. One of them, “The Yearling”…was from the story and movie about the little deer…I liked that story. The other was called “Sweet Charity” (about which I knew nothing). I wisely chose “The Yearling”…because I liked the story. “The Yearling” rehearsed for about 6 weeks…did 2-3 performances and closed…”Sweet Charity” ran for two years.

On another day, he called and said “I’ll pick you up on the corner”…I went down and waited…in a few minutes a taxi pulled up and I got in…we went way downtown…into the Italian district…Mundy hadn’t said much…then the taxi pulled up in front of a small funeral home. Mundy spoke to some guys as we went in. We walked up to a casket where a small grey-haired man lay. Mundy was quiet for a moment…then he said “That’s John D’Angelico…the world’s greatest guitar maker…he made my guitar…I just wanted you to see him before they put him away.”

A couple of weeks before Christmas that year, Mundy called and said that he and Barbara were taking the kids to Laurel and Mobile for Christmas…if I wanted to come along and share the driving, I was welcome. I showed up on the morning we were to leave…he had rented a large station wagon…we tied all the luggage on the luggage rack on top and tied a tarp over it all.

We drove all day and got down into Virginia…somewhere…and spent the night at a Motor Court (remember those little cabins?). The next morning he called me over to their room. It was cold and raining. He said “Barbara said the kids’ clothes for today are in a small suitcase up under the tarp”…would I help him? We went outside and just stood there. I looked across the highway…there was an abandoned service station. I said “Let’s drive over there...under their roof…at least we’ll be out of the rain”. When we drove over, we saw that there was no roof…it had long ago rotted away…only the beams were up there…and it was raining just as hard under the roof as it was anywhere else. We got out and started to untie the ropes. Now, you know how hard it is to untie a wet rope…especially a cold wet rope…but we got started…Mundy on one side of the wagon and I, on the other. I worked for a few minutes, and, being a good bit taller, looked across the wagon at him. I stopped and thought…”God… please freeze this moment in my mind…”…and He did. There was my hero…my mentor…quickly becoming my friend for the rest of his life…every hair in place…dressed to the nines…you could have cut your finger on the crease in his trousers…and his nose was dripping faster than it was raining!

Right after that Christmas, Louise and I got married and went back to New York to live. Mundy saw to it that some more quality work came my way…and I got to subbing for him quite a lot…record sessions, some club dates and the Merv Griffin TV Show…and sometime toward the end of ’65 or the early part of ’66, he and his family moved to Los Angeles. I have a letter…”Louise and Lloyd…we made it here all right…boxes everywhere…may never unpack them all…start planning your trip”.

Then, later on…another letter…with sad news about Barbara. Eventually one came that read “Lou and Lloyd…I’ve remarried…her name is Betty.”

We stayed in touch for the next 5-6 years…Mundy came back to New York on business, occasionally…I have a picture of him holding my daughter, Lauren, only a few months old…in 1968.

He called one year and said “I’m coming to New York to work with Peggy Lee for 3 weeks…then she goes to Florida for 3 weeks…but I can’t go to Florida…do you want to go?” I asked him if he was sure he had called the right phone number.

In 1972, I called and told him we were moving to Nashville and asked him if he knew anyone in Nashville…he did…and in 1973 we moved there…where I became Music Director of Opryland…for the next 25 years.

Mundy came through Nashville once in a while…going to Europe…going to New York…coming from Europe or New York…sometimes, business in Nashville. In 1978, he came to do a network special, with Lucille Ball, called “Lucy Comes to Nashville.” He had done the arrangements…and he conducted…and he saw to it that I played guitar in the orchestra.

In 1989, Buck Ford, Ernie Ford’s oldest son, produced a network special on his father’s “50 Years in Show Business”…which I arranged and conducted. We flew to California to tape it in the same studio where the Ernie Ford Show had originated. I was able to see to it that Mundy sat in the guitar chair.

What a pleasure to get to return that favor!

We touched base every year for a while when I would do the Opryland audition tours. I once nursed a beautifully wrapped, 12-pound country ham all the way to California…on a Lear jet…and handed it to him when he and Ray Brown walked out of the stage door of the Merv Griffin Show. Ray knew exactly what it was when he first saw it…it took Mundy a minute.

We did some concerts...the University of Southern Mississippi…for homecoming…Austin Peay University in Tennessee…a “guitar summit” in Jackson…to kick off the creation of the “Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame” that Jim Brewer had started. There was Mundy, myself, Bob Saxton, Bucky Barrett, Steve Blailock and Mundy’s life-long friend, Skeets McWilliams.

We did a duet CD project called “This One’s for Charlie”…named for his friend, Charlie Byrd…later on, we did another one...”Poor Butterfly”…with our friend and exceptional bass player, Jim Ferguson.

He had always been involved with jazz festivals…Monterrey, Mobile…and eventually started playing the W.C. Handy festival in Florence, AL. He would stay with us for a couple of nights, then drive to Florence. When he stayed with us, he made himself at home…the perfect guest.

I get up early in the morning…but I’d let him sleep. Eventually, I’d fix breakfast…then I’d go to his bedroom, crack the door…and “holler” in to him…”Get up! There’s cows to be milked…and that ain’t gonna happen with you lying in there in the bed”…and I’d hear him grumble.

He didn’t really like grits…so I’d see to it that there was a small bowl by his plate every morning…just to hear him grumble.

He’d say “I usually only eat a light breakfast”…and “I seldom have anything before bedtime” …wanted to be known as a “light eater”…he wasn’t…he ate everything I put in front of him…and then, he’d extend the conversation…knowing full well that Louise was gonna bring him a dessert.

He brought me into the festival and we played it as a duo for several years…then we brought in Jim and we worked for several years as a trio…I won’t soon forget that experience.

I had to give up the festival, but he and Jim played it for a few more years, and after his last performance in Florence, Jim brought him, along with Adam, back to Nashville. That afternoon, he and I went into the studio to replace one song for the “Poor Butterfly” album. We recorded “I’m Through with Love”. As far as I know, this was the last time he was in a studio…where he had spent so much of his life.

When I started to take him and Adam to the airport, Louise handed him a little shopping bag…filled with her brownies…he loved them. He was sitting up front with the little bag in his lap…nursing it…and looking out the window…Adam was in the back. We didn’t say much for a while…then I said “Don’t eat all of them brownies…before you get to California.” He sat quietly for a few seconds…then, still looking out the window, he said “I’ll eat these brownies when I “blank” well please.” I said “I kinda thought you might.”

For the past 25 years, I would read the New York Times obituaries every morning…and if I read where one of Mundy’s friends, or someone he knew…or had worked with had passed on, I would call…early in the day (his time) and ease him into it…rather than have him hear about it later on…or miss it all together.

I called real early one day…I knew I’d wake him up…and said “You need to get on the phone…there’s been a massive earthquake in Los Angeles”. He just said “My God!” and hung up…but there was no need to worry…all of his children were safe.

In the last few years, he got to where he loved to talk about Laurel…and many times, our phone conversations would wind up with us mentally walking the streets…”did I remember where the Coca-Cola Bottling Company was?...Woolworths…the barber shops, the swimming pool…the theatres (the Strand, the Jean…and the Arabian…where we had played those two concerts on the first “Mundell Lowe Day”)…the store in mid-town Laurel where his parents had gotten his name?

We always talked on the phone…usually once or twice a week…during the last year and a half of his life, and when his health was failing…almost daily…then, finally 2-3 times a day…sometimes with him not fully remembering the previous call.

Betty said that she always knew when he was talking to me…because, eventually, he would be laughing. Talk about your “precious memories”.

On his last Wednesday, he called early in the day…I called back later on that afternoon…he said “the nurse is coming to give me a bath in a few minutes”…I asked if she was just gonna stand him up out in the yard and hose him down. He laughed and said “I guess so”…then there was a pause…and he said…”Lloyd…you won’t believe how weak I am”…he made it ‘til Saturday.

The next day, I walked out to my office. There’s not much room left…my life is out there. Guitars, books, sheet music, reams of blank staff paper, pictures, correspondence…I never throw anything away. Virtually everything Mundy has ever sent me is out there…sheet music…with little notes attached… that read: “Let’s try this for our next project”…”I like the bridge on this tune”…”do you know the verse to this tune?” There are lead sheets of music he had written. There are full arrangements/with copied out parts…rare mementoes…or arrangements from other guitarists that he had sent…sometimes with the cryptic note…”I want you to have this.”

Most all of it is in manilla folders. I sat down and picked up the closest one. When I opened it there was a sheet of music…I had forgotten all about. I read the first line of the lyrics...and it ate me alive…I don’t know how else to put that…but it got to me.

It was a song Mundy had sent a year and a half ago. He never sent lyrics…only the music…”You’re better with words than I am…please see what you can do.”

For this particular song he had said “I’m thinking of ‘home’.”

~ Lloyd