Hanging Tree Guitars

by Freeman Vines, Zoe Van Buren, Timothy Duffy (Photographer)

A running essay developed from oral interviews with guitar maker Freeman Vines with a photographic record of guitars by Timothy Duffy.

Genres: Nonfiction, Music, Memoir

162 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr Vines crafts guitars out of found wood. They are certainly visually unique if not stunning. He lives alone in Eastern North Carolina. Timothy Duffy is a photographer and friend of Vines. This book is an oral exposition by Vines alongside the haunting images from Duffy. This is very arty and the tertiary analysis provided by Zoe Van Buren reeks of the shamelessly academic but that can’t derail this genuinely moving book. Revealing further might spoil the endeavor. I’d suggest basking in the effort though this was a Christmas gift and I’ve no idea about the price.

[Richard Bakare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Settled Work, is sorely lacking in society today. A peaceful and lifelong relationship with a skill or hobby. Consuming us and leading us to personal and intellectual growth along the way. Sometimes amounting to something that pulls in the outside world or contributes to it.

Craftsmanship, an unrelenting standard for a signature style. To create without looking for adoration. It has the power to transform something dull into a thing of singular artisan ship. But when we know the deep history of an object, can it ever be full transformed into something else?

Vanishing History, creators are still out there and the search for singular artisan focus is more relevant than ever in a world of mass produced everything. But in the places like the deep woods of North Carolina or small towns across the US, there are people like Freeman Vines, whose works and stories may be lost to time of not captured. That’s why books like this one are so important. Zoe Van Buren and Timothy Duffy have weaved imagery and word into a twisting story of history, the land, and one man’s search for a sound.

[Roland Curit · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about Vines’ artistic work building guitars. He has spent his life looking for the perfect sound and the closest he has gotten is using wood that has “history”. Vines has used wood from barns, feeding troughs and pianos, but the title of the book stems from the several guitars he built using wood from a tree that was the site of a hanging. He was raised and lives in rural North Carolina, and while the tensions between black and white have eased over the span of his life, some wounds never heal. When word spread about the book, many people admonished Vines for giving life to the lynching. Timothy Duffy is the photographer for the book. He developed a friendship with Vines over a period of several years, altering and personalizing his own shooting style to better capture Vines’ work. “Hanging Tree Guitars” is the culmination of two artists, a craftsman looking for a sound, and a photographer looking to promote a story through printed image. With half of the book dedicated to Duffy’s pictures and the other half dedicated to Vines’ quotes on life and music, “Hanging Tree Guitars” feels better served on a coffee table than stacked in a bookshelf. At 150 pages, I finished it in under 2 hours, watching a couple of YouTube videos, and Google mapping several sites in the process. It was a gift from my mother, a current resident of Fountain NC, where Vines grew up. She purchased it in support of her community.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surely the most unusual book ever written about guitar-making, as well as the most moving, thought-provoking, and, occasionally, gut-wrenching. Tim Duffy's brilliant, old-style photos of the guitars, the land, and Mr. Vines accompany and expand on the extended interview with Vines. It is wonderful that his story has been preserved. Hopefully, his stunning guitars will be, too.

[Rachel Nevada Wood]

This book centers on Freeman Vines, a Black found materials guitar maker who lives in Pitts County, North Carolina. Vines began making guitars when he heard a specific tone from a gospel guitarist and wanted to replicate it. He found that the best tones were often from old wood and began making guitars wholly by hand as different wood spoke to him.

In 2015, he was introduced to photographer Timothy Duffy. Duffy uses an old style of photography (wet-plate collodion) and began photographing Vines work. The two were already collaborating when Duffy began working on making guitars out of wood he had been given from a local tree where a Black man had been lynched. Both Vines and Duffy, along with folklorist Zoe Van Buren, dug to find the identity of the man who had been hung and this information informed all of their respective work-- Vines' guitars, Duffy's photos, and Van Buren's transcription of interviews.

The result is a truly uniquely collaborative book. Conversations between Duffy and Vines are parsed poetically by Van Buren and then offset with Duffy's photos of Vines guitars. This triangulation allows so much about race, music, spiritualism, nature, and objects to be packed into a very, very fast read. Definitely worth an hour or two of your time!

[Caleb Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick - and interesting - read highlighting the work of Freeman Vines, who builds guitars out of materials he connects with on varying personal and spiritual levels. Though the book is billed as cataloging guitars built from old hanging trees - in reality, there was only one hanging tree referenced and just a handful of guitars built from it. Not sure why I’d thought all of Vines’ guitars were made from multiple hanging trees (the thought of multiple hanging trees alone makes me shudder) - but the stories told behind all of Vines’ work, hanging tree guitars or not is worthy of turning the next page.

Tim Duffy’s tin-type photography in the book adds a lot of mojo to the character of Vines - and Zoe Van Buren’s style of oral history collecting (piecing together the narrative into an almost poetic presentation) paints Vines not only as a luthier, but also as a philosopher.

[Aidan Bertram · Rating 4 out of 5]

More profound than I had expected. A short portrait of a great artist who might otherwise (and might still) be lost to time. This has me thinking about the old beam we pulled out of my parents house and stashed in the garage. I will turn it into a guitar eventually

[Dow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mystical. Visceral. Sparse. Vital. Pulsing.

[Diane Thayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Evocative photography and an essay-like narrative the book presents as strong a story about race in America as anything I've read recently (and I've read quite a bit)

[Deborah Cleaves · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly moving.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just beautiful. On the surface, it's an incredible photostudy of handmade guitars, but it's truly an examination of art, history, racism, and the things that inspire us.

[Carl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting. Sort of a coffee table book.

[Shane Brogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful look into history and violence that is often kept silent and the art it can produce. Everything about this book drew me in.

[Dan Downing · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning collaboration between a rural musician turned guitar maker and the staff of The Music Maker Relief Foundation.
After photographer Timothy Duffy---co-founder of The Music Maker Relief Foundation---was introduced to Freeman Vines, a bond formed between the photographer and the sculptor. Given the time together and their joint spiritual natures, both grew. Mr. Vines became reinvigorated in regard to his life's work of guitar making and Mr. Duffy expanded his camera work beyond portraits as he developed insight to the wood and the way wood speaks to Mr. Vines.
Ms. Van Buren took to recording the talk between herself and the sculptor and among them all as they sat and worked on the front porch. She took the recordings and turned them into a variation of Dell Hymes' ethnopoetics, an elegant and transcendent accompaniment to the collodion wet plate photographs. The result is a deeply merged emotional experience well beyond that achieved by words or photos alone.
Highly Recommended.