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heard the call and met the ambulance at the ER. After three attempts with the paddles, his heart restarted. When I heard what had happened, I took off running from my house up the road toward the hospital, which wasn’t too far. When I got there, they told me Hank was stable, but his heart had stopped for several minutes. The question would be whether or not he had brain damage. When Hank Goddard came to, I’m told one of the first things he asked was, “Doc, after all this, will I be able to play the piano?” To which the doctor replied, “Most certainly!” Hank said, “Great! ’Cause I couldn’t do that before.”
    Hank had multiple bypass surgeries, and I’m so happy to know that he lived to see me drive out of town and eventually got to read about himself in
Guitar Player
magazine. I’ve raved about his talent in just about every guitar publication that has ever interviewed me. The truth is that Hank Goddard deserves to be in all the guitar rags based on his monumentalability alone, and whenever I could help him get in one, that meant the world to me.
    One of the first things I bought with the first royalty check I ever received was a Gibson Chet Atkins hollow-body electric. But it wasn’t for me. I drove home that Thanksgiving and walked right up onto Hank’s porch and handed it to him. I said, “This doesn’t even begin to pay you back, but here you go. I owe you everything.” I think that’s the only time I really ever saw him cry.
    In March of 2008, while I was working on my guitar-heavy
Play
album, I got a very bad case of the flu and had a 102-degree temperature. I must have slept for three days. Then in the middle of this strange fevered state, I had a melody in my head and an idea for a song about Hank. Lying in bed and burning up, I came up with some of the words for the first verse: “I met this angel with callused hands who let this boy into his band . . .” I remember typing those words into my computer and immediately falling right back into some fever dream. The next morning, I woke up and found out that my friend and teacher Hank Goddard had passed away that night just as I was writing about him. He had been battling cancer. This was such a strange moment of serendipity that at first I just couldn’t get over it.
    After Hank Goddard died, I felt it was important that he be properly honored in the community where he spent so much of his life. And so I wrote a personal tribute to him in our local paper in West Virginia.
    MY MENTOR, THE MASTER
    As barges go up and down our mighty Ohio River they leave a tremendous wake. I think some lives are like that. One person in particular passed away last week that changed my life, and the Ohio Valley deserves to know more about him. His name was Clarence Goddard, his friends knew him as “Hank.”
    As a kid, my grandfather would tell me stories about this local legend, this guitar player named Hank Goddard who was every bit as good as anyone who ever held a pick.
    He worshiped Hank’s talent and taught me to as well. I was not aware until later that the rest of the world didn’t know who Hank was. I was brought up to think he was as famous as they get. I remember going to a weekend backyard party at Mayor Biggie Byard’s house in Glen Dale. Hank was playing lead guitar and my Papaw took me over to him to watch and learn. I couldn’t believe thisinternational superstar was this close. I figured he must be on a break from touring the country and just playing here on a day off. When he heard this 8-year-old who wanted to learn guitar was there, Hank turned his back to the band and basically gave me a lesson as they played.
    This was the first of many.
    At 11 years old I was invited to play at the church picnic and Hank put together a small band for me, which went on to play at Glen Dale Fire Department parties, church events, clubs, VFW’s, nursing homes, political