Waterboy Steve Wickham chronicles the story of his much loved but ill fated Geronimo Grandini violin in an installation piece presented as part of the Tread Softly Festival, which runs in Sligo from 19th - 29th of July.
Below, Steve writes for Culture about the loss of an 'old friend'.
I bought my violin ‘Geronimo Grandini’ from Vincent Crehan in Dublin in the summer of 1986.
To my ears it was the most beautiful sounding instrument I’d ever heard. It was one violin amongst scores of violins in his shop. It produced a sound I had longed to make ever since I started to play. Geronimo’s sound was warm, meliflous and sonorous. It virtually played itself.
1986 was a great year for me, my band, The Waterboys, were riding high.
My violin was made in the 1920’s in Paris in Mirecourt and would often muse about the many violinists that had made music with it and what repertoire theyhad played. I had a lot of success with this violin and it featured in many of my recordings over the years.
The name ‘Geronimo’ always conjours up for me images of the brave Apache warrior and the name ‘Grandini’ a maestro of violin makers.
Armed with this fiddle, musically, I would often go where angels fear to tread.
I’m very hard on fiddles.
Geronimo had three bad accidents.
The first happened in 1993, it was devastating. I brought the violin back to Crehan’s and Vincent’s son, Terry, made a fine job of repairing it. Something was missing though, a nuance of the tone. I don’t know what, but it still sounded great. Some years afterwards I got a part in a play as a gypsy violinist. Geronimo would sit on the side of the gypsy cart, and at the right moment, I’d take it off and play it with all my might. Between acts, the cart was wheeled into the wings. One evening the cart was wheeled rather too enthusiastically by one of the actors, and Geronimo was squashed like a spider between the stage and the cart.
Kieran was surprised to see me again, but he kept quiet and repaired the violin beautifully once again. This time the tone loss was more pronouned. At a session in Sligo one night, the violin fell onto a flag stone floor and the neck broke. I couldn’t face going back to Kieran again, so this time I brought it to Kevin Sykes in Ballyvarry. He put it back together, by now the tone was muted and the soul of the instrument seemed all but gone.
Something had to be done. Geronimo had to sing again.
I brought it to Kuros Torkzadeh, a Persian violin maker in Kinvarra. In reassuring tones, Kuros said that with some proper restoration something could indeed be done. At great expense he restored it using reclaimed wood from another early 20th Centure Mirecourt violin.
Marvellously Geronimo was reborn!
I was delighted.
In the meantime, I had acquired another violin to bring with me on the road and retired Geronimo to recording work and special occasions.
More recently, concerts in Spain necessitated that I bring a spare violin and so Geronimo was back on the road again.
When travelling back from Santander, Geronimo, now my second violin, went with the stage crew and was due to be loaded on a freight only plane.
Disaster.
Geronimo was dropped by one of the airport crew and broken so badly it’s now really beyond repair. Pieces missing, probably littering a runway in northern Spain.
So here lies Geronimo, silence and shattered, the battered splinters of an old friend.
Steve Wickham’s installation Geronimo appears at Ballymote Library on July 19th to 28th, as part of the Tread Softly festival - more details here.
