Gravitational heavyweights in our culture, beyond baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie, few things say “American” more than music and road trips. This guitar is symbolic of both.
One of the earliest Les Pauls, this ’53 was purchased new (along with a matching Les Paul amp, at Charles E. Wells Music Company) by Bill Woodard, a construction contractor in Denver who helped build Western Electric power plants and other projects in the economic boom that followed World War II. By night, he was a gigging musician who stayed busy with his band, The Saints, playing union-hall dances, VFWs, hotel lounges, and other venues including mob-run clubs that would “ask” the band to play slow songs when the crowd became too enthusiastic. Though The Saints lasted only a few years, Woodard never stopped playing.
In 1963, he and his wife, Ruth, took on a new hobby as “Airstreamers” in the Wally Byam Caravan Club, an organization of camper-owning enthusiasts known for traveling in groups and gathering by the thousands at “International” rallies once each year in locales across North and Central America. That year, they went to Mexico, followed in ’65 by a journey to Panama.
After the Woodards retired and moved to Texas in the early ’70s, they spent nearly three decades involved with the Caravan, including a 1977 trip to Brandon, Manitoba, where Bill and the guitar joined the Byamaires, a group of Caravaner musicians that would play dance sets, its name a mash-up tribute to the Caravan’s founder and vocal pop groups from the ’40s and ’50s.
In the summer of ’93, the International rally drew 2,531 rigs to Bismarck, North Dakota, where they established “Silver City” on several acres on the city’s south side, neighboring the airport. Highlighted by trips to museums, restaurants, and historic/scenic areas along the Lewis and Clark Trail, the event also hosted the very first Concours ’d Elegance, in which 48 members of the Vintage Airstream Club paraded their rigs through the grounds then welcomed visitors to tour their interiors; the VAC’s website says the star of the show was a 1936 model owned by Betty and Eugene Danaher.
Unfortunately, Bismarck became notorious in Byam Caravan lore when, on July 1, participants experienced the phenomenon of the Northern Plains hailstorm. For 15 minutes, 2″-diameter hail (pushed by 40-mile-per-hour winds) fell so intensely that visibility sometimes dropped to zero. Piling on, two more storms followed, dropping 2.7″ of rain at the airport – a record for a 24-hour span. Roads, culverts, and ditches became rivers, the grounds of Silver City, a lake.
“Many times while we were playing, someone would come up and ask if they could take pictures and look at the guitar,” he said. “Some of them asked to play it a little, which was the only time anyone other than me ever strummed it.”
Woodard’s stint with the Byamaires ended in the late ’80s, and, having not uncased the Les Paul for several years, he was hoping to find it a new home. Overjoyed at meeting him and hearing the guitar’s story, VG publisher Alan Greenwood – who for years had been wanting a vintage goldtop – was happy to offer top dollar to become its new owner.
This article originally appeared in VG’s January 2024 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
