A couple of weeks back the folks behind the Open Carry Guitar Rally put one of Carter Albrecht's guitars on the auction block as a fundraiser for the May 3 event, which will once again take place atop the Continental Avenue Bridge over the Trinity River. Organizers figure they'll need around $5,000 to cover escalating costs for the second rally, which will have performers and police this year. A Go Fund Me only got them halfway there.
Carter's family offered up the Telecaster that once belonged to the singer-songwriter, who was shot to death on September 3, 2007, by a man now running for Dallas City Council. At the time Albrecht was 34 and playing with both Edie Brickell and Sorta.
Early on, opening bids for the Telecaster stalled at around $300, $400. But this afternoon, with just a handful of days left, Carter's guitar now sits at $1,730 after 82 bids. Mike Schwedler, Majestic Theatre general manager and member of the rally's newly formed board, says he expects it to climb well beyond that before the auction closes. "The heartstrings involved in that guitar -- I think a lot of people are waiting until the end so they can bid just enough to buy it," he says.
The day the guitar went up for grabs, I asked Carter's long-ago roommate and bandmate Danny Balis about the Tele. He asked around and wrote a little something. I figured it would make more sense to post closer to the end of the auction than at the beginning. Turns out, the guitar has quite a tale to tell.
"This was a Tele that Carter bought brand-new sometime around 2000," Balis explains. " Ward Williams played it during it the beginning of Sparrows. Apparently Ward already had an old Kay Sears brand guitar he owned, but it wasn't quite reliable enough to be his main live instrument, so Carter let him use the Fender as his main guitar. Mostly all of Ward's parts on Rock and Roll Days were recorded on this instrument. Ward ended up buying his own guitar for the Snowflakes era, and the Tele went back into the case, occasionally making live and studio appearances in Sorta shows and records. It was passed around from Ward to Trey Johnson to Carter -- whoever needed that Tele sound on a particular song.
"After Carter passed, I acquired his Gibson Hummingbird Everly Brothers edition acoustic from his parents. It is still my main acoustic and I used it entirely on my solo album and subsequent live shows supporting that record. It's something I'll keep until the day I die and pass down to my son who was very close to Carter as well and a fine player in his own right.
"Many of Carter's instruments are in good hands of people he played with, recorded with, was friends with. Salim [Nourallah] has his Nord 88 he uses at his studio Pleasantry Lane, Ward has his iconic Gretsch Tennessee Rose, and I believe his folks held on to his red Gibson 335, his first 'real' electric that was played on everything from the Limes to Sparrows to his final recordings. They sold it a short time ago to a close college friend of Carter.
"The Tele would be a really cool piece of Dallas music history to own, and rare that it is actually available to someone outside of his 'inner circle' of musicians and friends. Hell, I may bid on it."
But it won't be cheap. The good news is, any money made from the guitar's sale that doesn't go toward the Open Carry Guitar Rally will be directed back to the Carter Albrecht Music Foundation.
