The Guitars of Rolly Waters: Córdoba Nylon Acoustic
The nylon-stringed Córdoba sat on the sofa where he’d left it. He sat down, pulled the guitar into position, finger-picked his way through a Bach fugue, one of the few classical pieces he’d memorized. The Romeros wouldn’t be threatened by his tirandos, but he wasn’t half bad for a rock-and-roll guy.
Border Field blues
A few months ago, I talked about the Gibson-ES335 guitar that’s featured in the first Rolly Waters mystery, Black’s Beach Shuffle. A very different type of guitar got the feature treatment in my second novel, Border Field Blues.
I did not go into as much detail about the Córdoba guitar as I did with the Gibson but the guitar would look something like this:
Unlike the Gibson ES-335, the Córdoba is an acoustic guitar. Rolly is primarily an electric guitar player, but I wanted him to be playing a guitar that fit with other elements of the story. An acoustic nylon-stringed instrument seemed like the right choice. Guitars such as the one above are sometime called Spanish guitars because historically they were designed, built and played in Spain. It’s used in classical music, flamenco and various Latin American musical styles, including Mariachi music. Which is why I chose to feature it in Border Field Blues, much of which takes place along the San Diego-Tijuana border. The father of one of the main characters was a mariachi musician and the character carries his father’s guitar with him when he crosses the border.
I chose a Córdoba mostly because I liked the name. It’s a fairly new company founded in Santa Monica, California, in 1997. They have a guitar under $500 which rates pretty highly (and would fit Rolly’s budget).
Nylon-stringed classical guitars differ from the steel-stringed acoustic guitars most often used for rock, pop, folk, blues, country, and bluegrass music.
- Steel-string guitars produce a bright, loud, and resonant sound. Nylon-string guitars produce a warmer, softer, and mellower tone.
- Steel-string guitars have a narrower neck, a thinner profile, and a larger body to withstand their higher string tension. Nylon-string guitars feature a wider, flatter fingerboard and a smaller, lighter body.
- Steel strings can be harder on the fingers, especially for beginners, requiring more finger pressure to fret notes while nylon strings are gentler on the fingertips.
It should also be noted that before the invention of nylon, classical guitars used “catgut” strings. It’s a bit of a misnomer as no house pets were involved. Farm animals were, however. Catgut strings are made of a fiber found in the intestines of goats and sheep. Nylon has become the preferred material for most guitarists but catgut is still being used in some specialized cases. You can read more about the process here.
As for the quote above, who are The Romeros who wouldn’t be threatened by Rolly’s tirandos? They’re the internationally famous guitar-playing Romero family whose members have lived in Del Mar since 1969. It was a no-brainer for Rolly to think of them when considering his own playing. You can hear the Los Romeros quartet performing in concert below.
As to the Bach fugue Rolly has managed to learn and play? I’m thinking it’s probably the well-known BWV 1000 played in the video below. I don’t think Rolly can play it as well Ms. Betaneli, but he can get through it. It’s a good workout that really stretches those fingers and hands!
Terriers
Ocean Beach was one of the key locations for my fourth Rolly Waters mystery, Ballast Point Breakdown. It was also the location for one of my favorite detective shows of the last twenty years—Terriers.
The show only ran for only one season on FX, but it’s recently been picked up for streaming on Hulu. The full 13-episode season is also available to purchase for streaming (only $9.99!) from Apple or Amazon.
Why do I like Terriers so much? The OB locations for one. As I noted in my recent post about Harry O, San Diego hasn’t been used much as a location for detective shows. Terriers captured the spirit of OB in the same way I tried to do with Ballast Point Breakdown. It’s a darn good show that never really got a chance on FX.
Crime drama. Comedy-drama. Neo-noir. Black comedy. That’s how Terriers is currently categorized on Wikipedia. Sounds to me like the same pool Rolly Waters has been playing in (or surfing?). If you liked Ballast Point Breakdown, I think you’ll like Terriers. And vice-versa.
If you haven’t read or seen either, maybe now’s the time.
Max Thursday
San Diego’s first fictional private eye.
Last month I wrote about San Diego’s First TV Private Eye. But what about books? What was the first private eye book series set in San Diego? That honor goes to the Max Thursday series by Wade Miller.
Wade Miller was the combined last names of two authors who wrote the series together—Robert Wade and H. Billy Miller. Wade and Miller were lifelong friends who grew up in San Diego. They attended college together at San Diego State, quitting their senior year to enlist in the US Army. Other pen names they used in their career included Walter James, Whit Masterson and Will Daemer. They wrote and published 33 crime novels together between 1947 and 1961. Quite a team!
Today, they are best known for Badge of Evil (1956), which they published under the pen name Whit Masterson. Badge of Evil was the basis for the noir movie classic Touch of Evil (1958), directed by Orson Welles and co-starring Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh.
The six Max Thursday novels are top notch examples of mid-century American hard-boiled detective stories. The first, Guilty Bystander, was nominated for an Edgar Award. Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, Anthony Boucher admired the novel for its “Machine gun tempo, tight writing, unexaggerated hardness and unorthodox and overwhelming ending.”
“The room wouldn’t stay still. It kept swinging in slow, creaking circles like a carousel running down. He was lost in a fog – a hot, sticky fog. A voice echoed down an empty street toward him, calling his name. Georgia’s voice. He waited for it to fade away as it always did.”
“Outside the sky was the same monotonous gray. The rain was drying into large puddles on Fifth Avenue. Max Thursday watched the early morning traffic and wished for the clean needles of a cold shower and something scalding to change the taste in his mouth.”
So not only were Wade and Miller authors of the first private eye series set in San Diego, they were two of the best! No less an authority than Dorothy B. Hughes said of them at the time, “Nobody writes the hardboiled mystery better.”
Eight of their books were made into movies, including what may be their best title ever, Kitten with a Whip (1959). The movie version (1964) starred Ann-Margret and John Forsythe.
The partnership was cut short when Miller died of a heart attack in 1961. Robert Wade forged on, writing another 13 novels under his own name and as Whit Masterson. He penned a regular crime fiction review column for the San Diego Union-Tribune until he died in 2012, at the age of 92.
Hollywood’s version of the first Max Thursday novel, Guilty Bystander, is available on YouTube. Don’t expect any San Diego locations, though. It was set and filmed in New York.
The famous 4 minute tracking shot that opens Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, based on Badge of Evil.
More:
Max Thursday series (Guilty Bystander, Fatal Step, Calamity Fair, Uneasy Street, Murder Charge, Shoot To Kill) on Amazon.
San Diego Eyes at the Thrilling Detective website lists more fictional San Diego private eyes, including the Rolly Waters series by yours truly.
San Diego’s First TV Private Eye
Harry O premiered on ABC in the fall of 1975. It was the first, but not quite the last, private eye TV series filmed in San Diego. At the time, we were all very excited to have a big-time TV show being filmed here. I watched it with my Mom every week (I think she was a secret David Janssen fan).
The show was one of the more creatively (if not commercially) successful versions of private eye shows made for TV. Harry came with the usual baggage—a former cop with a bullet lodged near his spine who picks up the occasional private eye case to help pay the rent. In short, he was down on his luck, living on the beach, with an old sports car that was always in the shop.
But what made the series interesting was its variations on the usual TV crime tropes. There were no car chases (not at first, anyway). Harry didn’t carry a gun. He relied on city bus services to get him where he wanted to go (a notable accomplishment in San Diego). Harry’s interior voiceovers captured the bruised romanticism of SoCal noirists such as Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald and Janssen delivered them in his best world-weary manner. The first episode, Gertrude, won The 1975 Edgar Allan Poe Mystery Writers Award (“the Edgar”) for “best episode in a television series.”
Sadly, the series only lasted two years and even more sadly, it left San Diego behind after only thirteen episodes. For financial reasons, the show was moved to Los Angeles and put Harry in a trailer at Malibu Beach. Not unlike another show which had premiered the same week—The Rockford Files. Apparently there wasn’t enough room for two private eye shows on TV.
The first Rolly Waters mystery was called Black’s Beach Shuffle. Coincidence or subconscious inspiration?
Harry makes a call from Coronado Island, with Downtown San Diego, circa 1975, across the bay.
More reading about Harry O:
The Thrilling Detective – Harry “O” Orwell
Crime Reads – REMEMBERING HARRY O, THE SEVENTIES’ SECOND BEST, MOSTLY FORGOTTEN PRIVATE EYE SERIES
Ray Bradbury Returns
My wife and I moved recently, on Christmas Eve of all things. In geographical distance, the move was less than a mile. But it was still a lot of work and there’s always more stuff to pack than you realize and more challenges setting up a new home than you remember.
But we’re pretty well settled in now. We’ve thrown away some old things, purchased a few new ones, and have finally managed to find a place for everything else. One thing I’m excited about is my new work studio, where I’ve been able to combine all of my creative doings in one place.
You may have noticed some of the art on the walls, which I’ve finally been able to hang in one place. I’ll talk about the photos on the right in a future post, but I wanted to give you a better look at the broadside now hanging over my desk. It’s a poem by Ray Bradbury, entitled THE POET CONSIDERS HIS RESOURCES. I purchased this particular piece just before I graduated from UCLA back in 1982.
My last year in college, I worked at Houle Rare Books & Autographs, a bookshop on the west side of Los Angeles (somewhere near Westwood Blvd and West Pico for you Angelenos). True to its name, the owner specialized in first editions, signed editions, monographs and other collectible volumes of literature. The Ray Bradbury piece was one of the items he had in the shop. I was a Bradbury fan, so when I knew I’d be graduating and moving back to San Diego I offered to buy it. The owner gave me a special deal on the piece. If memory serves, the store’s price was $125 and I got it for $75, but that was a long time ago.
Once I’d settled back in my hometown, I gave the piece to my Mom, as a thank you for helping me get through college (I paid my living expenses; she helped with tuition). I was a big Bradbury fan and he’d actually visited my Mom’s house once for some kind of book club event (sadly I wasn’t there, but I’ve seen the photos).
When Mom passed a few years ago, I took possession of the piece again. And now I’ve found a perfect place for it. I can review it every day when I sit down to write in my new studio. As you’ll see if you read below, it’s a perfect bit of inspiration for us scribblers. Did I mention I got my B.A. in Creative Writing/Poetry?
