Clapton's Guitar: Watching Wayne Henderson Build the Perfect Instrument 
In Clapton's Guitar, Allen St. John recounts how a perfect acoustic guitar comes into the world and how an artist gauges perfection. Wayne Henderson, master luthier and genius in blue jeans, will tell you that he simply puts penknife to wood and carves away "everything that isn't a guitar." This is the story of a master artist, set deep in the mountains of southwestern Virginia in a brick, one-story guitar shop, as busy and chaotic inside as it is simple outside. The space is well-lighted, cluttered with power tools, air hoses, and guitar bodies in various stages of completion. It is in this modest shop that Wayne Henderson crafts some of the most highly coveted acoustic guitars on earth, including one very special instrument he built for Eric Clapton.
Normally, there is a ten-year wait for a Henderson guitar, and St. John finds there are no exceptions even for an iconic figure like Clapton. But seeing it as a shortcut to getting his own guitar done, St. John jump-starts the process, and then takes readers with him on a mesmerizing journey into the heart of high-end instrument making with the man The Washington Post calls the "Mad Scientist of Mountain Music." Henderson, a small-town wise man, is not only the star of this book as a master guitar maker but also is the star of any stage he sets foot on as a master guitar player, equally at home at Carnegie Hall or the local VFW hall. Around this drolly humorous man circulates a small coterie of colorful characters and inspired musicians, who welcome you for an all-too-brief visit. By book's end, you too will want to be Wayne Henderson's friend.
In a rich tapestry of folklore and folksiness, St. John tells the story of building the Clapton guitar in loving detail, from the centuries-old forests where great tonewood grows, to the auction floor of Christie's where one of Clapton's guitars commands over $700,000. It's also a loving look at Wayne's corner of the world, the Blue Ridge mountain hamlets where American traditional music was born, and of Wayne's hometown of Rugby, Virginia, population 7, where the winding roads have kept progress at bay.
Whether you love old-time music, unplugged rock, traditional American craftsmanship, or simply gifted storytelling, Clapton's Guitar is an engaging work that you will want to savor and share with friends.
Reviews
We live in an age of superlatives, but this book takes things to the extreme. I enjoy descriptive writing, but I could have done without being told that every person, place, and thing in any way involved with the story is the best, unsurpassed, unmatched, incredible, like no other, unimaginable, perfect, etc., etc., etc. known to mankind. Henderson is a good builder, recognized by many as a great builder. But he's not a god. And Brazilian rosewood isn't quite as rare, endangered, valuable, the best, unsurpassed, unmatched, etc., etc., etc. as Allen would have us believe. You get my drift.
I kept wanting to think that this perpetual, overwrought gushing was Twain-esque hyperbole intended for comedic effect, but there's just enough awestruck sincerity to make clear that it wasn't.
Perhaps this tone was adopted out of necessity, since the main premise of the book is really a non-event. Eric Clapton played a guitar, offered some qualified praise of it, suggested that he'd like to own one, got on a waiting list, and seemingly forgot about the whole thing. Nobody's disputing Clapton's guitar credentials, but he's by all accounts a voracious collector/consumer of instruments and I couldn't see from his recorded reaction to his first Henderson where Eric came to the conclusion that Wayne's work is the supreme example of the luthier's craft, yada yada.
And the ending of the book is even more anticlimactic, as Clapton seemingly expresses absolutely no active interest in obtaining the Henderson guitar that he ostensibly has been pining for desperately over the past decade.
If you can get past the fundamental issue of the book's 13-year-old-girl-at-an-Elvis-concert tone and adjective usage, it's an entertaining read.