Guitar-building by design

It’s kind of like saying The Donald dabbles in real estate. 

Conolly isn’t in it for the money, though – he’s full-on consumed by music and spends all of his spare time on guitar works. Building. Designing. Customising. Playing. Collecting. Repairing.  

All of which leads to: Finding a place to store them. 

It hasn’t always been so. 

“I used to tinker with cars,” he says. “I was always tinkering with something. The trouble with a car hobby is, you don’t get any money back from that.” Especially when it involves race cars. 

“So I said, what’s my next passion?” 

Hint: He’s wearing a Jimi T-shirt. 

He bought his first guitar (a Kay acoustic) from Funky Tang’s back in 1976 when he was 14. He still has it. Problem was, he’s left-handed and southpaw instruments are hard to come by. Solution: he learned to play right-handed. But the advantage turned out to be all Conolly’s, as he can finger the frets like nobody’s business. 

“I have a very good control and nuance with my left hand – my precision hand,” he says. “It works, because people come up to me and say, ‘You’re so expressive.’ Conversely, I find that my picking hand is not as precise, but I’m too much into it now to change.” 

The same could be said for his guitar-building. 

By a modest estimate, he has at least 100 guitars in his collection. 

“I like to think of them as custom assembled,” he says, adding that he does custom electronics too. 

The magic happens when he orders the basic parts, considers which neck would go well on which body, adding the right pick guard and pickups, deciding on a colour or a stain, fittings for electronics and many other features. 

Next thing you know, there’s a ‘blue denim’ model that he’s made to look like it’s been worn and faded, with brass accoutrements and cut-up denim fabric he attached to the pick guard. Or there’s the guitar made from salvaged barn wood – circa 1850 – from the US; another with a base of cocobolo from Central America or zebrawood from Central Africa. 

“Sometimes I have a vision, but sometimes I just fly with it,” he says. 

A particularly rich-sounding guitar is made of walnut with pau ferro accents. He picks it up and plays it for several minutes (“Whoo, that sounds good!”), He’s not boasting – he is that good, but above all modest (“I’m not as good as I should be with all these guitars.”) 

Among those he has put together, one is inspired by the primary colours of Jamaica. A robin’s-egg-blue guitar base features an “all-seeing eye” on the pick guard. “It spoke to me,” Conolly says. 

Moving on to his collection, he has Strats and Teles – a glorious red one dating to the ‘80s, and a Mary Kay model (yes, it’s pink).  

When Conolly’s not collecting or building, he’s playing. 

“I’ve played with every single musician I’ve known on Cayman who has been here more than five years,” he says with a grin. A bit wistfully he notes, “There hasn’t been a hard transition of people coming out of school and into music…there are hardly any new ones coming on now.”  

As for his style and faves: “I’m old school…I play everything. I’m self taught, so anything that I’m not sure of, I buy a book or I go on the Internet.” 

He loves the blues, Jimi of course, Mark Knopfler, Buddy Guy, BB King, Stevie Ray. Guitar monsters, all.  

“I like soulful players who move me on a different level. Some [players] are masters of the craft but their music doesn’t move me. Some people play one note and it really moves me.” 

When he goes on a gig, he’s well armed. He usually takes three or four guitars – acoustics vary depending on the venue – and besides, there’s no justice in limiting yourself to just one. 

“You might pick up one guitar and it has some kind of effect on you that doesn’t inspire you, so you pick up another one,” he says.” 

Catch him locally playing with Roy Scott, Gary Ebanks and Rex Watler, among others.