Hi there. I recently acquired a Zager and I really like it. I probably never would’ve discovered it without the particular circumstance in which I got it. I’d like to share the story with you in appreciation of your fine guitars.

I’ve been writing songs for many years. I’ve given up a few times over the frustration of life and the lack of finding commercial success. This story reflects a new experience with music.

A few years ago I found out that an old friend was ill. He wasn’t a close friend, more like a friend of a friend, but someone I knew well enough and always enjoyed his company. He was someone who was always busy with projects and was rarely seen running wild around town like I was.

In 1985 in Lubbock, Texas, on weekends, we were usually hanging out with friends, looking for girls (unsuccessfully), and racing up and down the local cruise, driving and riding in hot rod cars and pickup trucks. My friend, Chuck was usually home tinkering in his shop, working on whatever car project he had going. On occasion, he would take something out for a test run. For a while he had a 1966 Chevy pickup he tinkered on. He found an old can of paint and temporarily colored his truck John Deere Yellow. He made me realize back then that even a dumb ol’ teenager could do some amazing work. He was inspiring.

When I heard he was sick a few years ago, with complications from Diabetes, I thought I’d write a funny little song about him as a gift to lift his spirits.

At the time, I just happened to be visiting Lubbock often, helping out and eventually moving my elderly Mom closer to me in Austin. I’d seen Chuck a few months before and he was recovering from a broken hip. He was having a hard time but getting around okay and still making everyone laugh. It was hard to tell just how sick he was and I honestly couldn’t fully conceive it anyway. I had the chance to show him my first draft of the song lyrics about a year later, around Thanksgiving 2022. The song was called, “Banana Truck Chuck”.

By then he was completely blind in one eye and had been on a steady routine of Dialysis every night for a few years. He’d been injecting Insulin even longer. He was exhausted and weak, but somehow was still in good spirits and made it out to a friend’s house. We talked about the song, which I only had a little guitar riff at that point, and he made some observations about my memories of the old days and told some characteristically funny stories. He also told me about his guitar and told me it was made by the guy that had the hit song, ‘In The Year 2525’.

I got back to Austin and worked on music when I could. I was aware that I might be pressed for time, but I didn’t want to force it. Amazingly, it just came together quickly on it’s own. Soon I recorded it and released it worldwide, all the while hoping his health would allow him to hear it.

For me, it was strange to do all this. I didn’t know if it was appropriate. I didn’t know if he or his family or our friends would appreciate or understand it. His family didn’t know me at all. I was full of doubt and insecurities. I wasn’t getting any feedback so I naturally assumed it wasn’t going over well.

I finally summoned the courage and called Chuck on the phone after a couple weeks. It was the first time I’d ever really talked to him one on one and he seemed amused with the song. We actually got into some deep conversation about his illness and his struggle. He was optimistic and funny and just living one day at a time. I felt like we were now close friends, after so many years. It was a good talk.

I’d vaguely remembered what he said about his guitar but forgot the name of it. I wanted to look it up so he told me again. I found it online and thought, cool, and that was it. I didn’t dig very deep since I was not in the market for another guitar. I just bought a basic model Martin for recording. I had to save money for a very long time. And I do like it. I have an old Takamine that doesn’t record well and a very old Fender that fret buzzes. I usually used the Fender anyway with White Bronze strings for recording.

I thought I should make a music video for the song, so I bought a 1/24 scale model 1966 Chevy pickup toy and painted it John Deere Yellow. I even made it a remote control.

I had another trip planned to Lubbock and thought I would take some extra time and shoot video footage around our old stomping grounds. Each visit, Chuck was in a deeper decline. He was unable to get around without his wife’s help and mostly stayed on the couch in front of a mountain of boxes of Dialysis fluid. Chuck’s eyesight was failing even more so I decided to give him the little truck when I was done since he probably wasn’t going to be able to actually see the video. I dropped it off and visited again late one Saturday night. He was looking very pale and his strength was drained as he asked his wife to get out his guitar. I played it for a while and he really enjoyed it. He was making up lyrics and smiling and laughing. It was a very good time. I told him it was a really nice guitar. Better than any of mine.

He called me a few weeks later. He was saying goodbye to friends and family. He had gone completely blind and lost his desire to live. It was not a sudden decision. He thanked me for the song and we had another deep conversation about life and illness and death. Even laughed a little more. He confided more in me than most, I presume. It was another good talk. Obviously, it would be our last conversation. I was happy to describe my ideas for the music video. It was almost like he could see it. He died from Kidney failure two days later after stopping Dialysis.

Before I attended his funeral (and nervously played his song – and edited a few inappropriate words), I got to meet his family. Almost everyone mentioned how much Chuck liked the song and how he told everyone he saw to listen to it. Friends, family, and neighbors. I was very surprised. I had no idea that he liked it that much. They all said it made him very happy and they appreciated that I could give him that. It made them happy to see Chuck happy in his final three months.

The last few years, I’ve been struggling with the meaning of why I want to play music. I’m frustrated and tired of not getting anywhere and I don’t have the resources to make success happen. The time, money, or energy. It sometimes feels futile, vain, and self centered, especially on social media. And sometimes I feel like someone might think I’m exploiting and using other people’s lives as inspiration for my own profit.

But, writing this song for Chuck and seeing the happiness it brought him made me realize something profound.It’s not my music. It doesn’t belong to me. Just because I create it from thoughts and memories (and somewhere else I can’t explain), it isn’t just for me. Success doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t even have to be a good song to be a good thing.

That probably sounds stupid and simple, but it’s taken me a lifetime (and some deaths) to understand. A few years before Chuck died, another friend died of Cancer. A very close friend, and I had a song for him too, but I was too caught up in my own head to properly share it with him. This time, with Chuck, I hadn’t realized all that yet, but I knew I didn’t want to regret not sharing something again.

I was told at his funeral, in return, Chuck wanted me to have his Zager guitar. The one I played that Saturday night and brought him a little happiness.

I don’t know how he discovered Zager, but I do know he was very particular about quality and craftsmanship. I’m honored to play his guitar and will always remember the lessons I’ve learned through his life and his death.

He gave me so much more than I gave him. A profound clarity that music is much more than just notes and words, and it belongs to no one, but everyone.

All these thoughts and feelings are housed in a Zager guitar that you built and was signed in 2012. I’ve modified the pick guard and painted it John Deere Yellow. I really appreciate the quality of this guitar. It was enjoyable to play from the very first strum. Chuck picked a nice guitar.

The video is not available yet, but you can find multiple links to the song here:https://songwhip.com/thebigsid/banana-truck-chuck

Thanks for creating a wonderful instrument. It’s now meaningfully bonded in life and in death.

Sincerely, Sidney Stephens www.theBigSid.biz

I sat at the corner of a big, rectangle, wooden table in what would be the least busy part of the bar. It was a dive bar, with grit and grime and smoke tar embedded into the walls and ceiling tiles. The stage was only elevated about ten inches, giving an audience an intimate relationship with whoever was on stage. I watched him sweat as he played and sang the aggressive bluesey notes he was so accustomed to performing every day and night. Always leveling up a little more with every performance. The excessive volume of the amplifier was used as a guitar effect, rumbling and rattling with every half note tuned down growl of the E string. There was nothing artificial about him or the music that was bleeding out. The man was a combination of a Godly touch along with years of finger bleeding practice and experimental guitar tone.

If there was an audience, I couldn’t see them. I was just barely off on the corner out of sight. It seemed like there was no one out there. No accumulated beer bottles. No murmur or spattered applause wafting smoke from cheap cigars. I couldn’t even see a band on the stage or even their shadows. Not even the sound of any music being pumped out of sour beer stained amplifiers. Just a silent, muffled hum like a soft rain. It was as if there was a sound barrier in front of me. A curtain between me and the rest of the house, completely invisible but permeable for the thick air of the claustrophobic space to infiltrate. But still, he was performing with all the vigor of satisfying a full house.

The blank silent song ended and I watched as he exited the stage with a quick wave and was headed towards my table. It wasn’t a coincidence, I picked this table in hopes I would meet the dude.

He was exhausted as he stood with his hands flat on the table and looking straight down. It’s always a bit of a surprise when someone famous appears larger than life but turns out to be a little guy. I knew he was a man with a small frame from years of seeing pictures of him standing next to other people. Still, it was a strange thing to take it all in. I was enamored with his simple presence. I knew this would be the only time I would ever be this close.

He looked up at someone behind me as a signal that he was ready for a refresher then briefly glanced over at my eager face. I extended my hand for a handshake and he just shook his head, like he was saying, not now man, not now.

My eyes fell downward as my arm went limp. He saw my disappointment and quickly reevaluated. He reluctantly offered his hand out of pure kindness. His grip was weak from his lack of enthusiasm, and his eyes continued to look straight ahead, acknowledging me as little as possible, but I was just happy to shake the hand of my biggest hero.

As he withdrew his hand and sipped on his glass of ice water garnished with a dull, yellowed lemon, something awakened in him after a few seconds, like he got his energy back, and he was suddenly amused at my presence. He took another look and saw something in me that was friendly and real, like we could actually be friends. He smiled and extended his hand again. This time grasping my hand with a firm, energetic grip.

I eagerly shook his hand again, this time with overwhelming happiness as he drew in my arm closer, uncomfortably forcing my hand to touch the top of his belt. He was joking around like he was making me touch his crotch. I started laughing and said, “What hell am I going to tell people? Hey, I touched his pecker!” He was laughing at my expense but it was all in good fun. It was completely spontaneous, not a power play or show of aggressive dominance. It was just a funny, stupid thing to do in the moment. A way to make a monotonous ritual a little more interesting and unexpected.

Then it was if time had hiccuped. It was suddenly a different moment where I saw him again, but it was later, after the show in a dimly lit corridor. It was somber. Something had changed. He was a little sad and a little confused and very alone. Time jumped for him as well. He knew something had happened, something was different, but he didn’t know what it was.

He walked towards me through the crawling haze coming from the stage in the background creeping into the corridor, the lights slowly drawing up behind him, just bright enough to see the back room turn white, erasing everything in the distance and filling the area with a dull, smokey glow. He approached me with a question on his face. It was THE question.

All I could say is, “Do you feel it?”

He asked, “Yeah. Is this it? It’s over?”

I replied, “It’s over, but you gotta know, it’s not really over. You touched a lot of lives and you’ll keep on touching people, for a long time. You did good”.

He asked, “So why are YOU here?” and I answered, “I don’t really know, I think to say goodbye. And to meet my hero”.

He smiled and said, ” Yeah, well, you know I don’t do anything that don’t just come to me”.

“I know,…still…” I said with an affirming grin.

He put his hand on my upper arm, just below my shoulder. He gave a subtle squeeze I would feel for the rest of my life, and he nodded. He was sad but it was okay. He simply accepted his fate like he’d always done. Death was just the final encore.

As he turned and began to walk away, he stopped, as if to ask one final question. He looked back at me, and was getting ready to ask his carefully worded thought. He wasn’t sure of how much he really wanted to know. The how and why? The details. He wanted to approach it with delicacy. He started to ask, but I interrupted, “It was okay, not the worst, but not the best either, but it was okay”.

He seemed to be satisfied with that, and with a single nod, he continued to walk on. The details didn’t really matter anyway.

I watched until the moment stopped in time, like I was watching a movie scene that was suddenly frozen in frame. He was walking away with one leg stepping ahead, then it all just suddenly stopped.