On Guitars, Friends, and Unexpected Journeys: Reflections From Kenny Hill (VIDEO)

The 2025 “Tenth Year Anniversary" University of Rhode Island Guitar and Mandolin festival was really, really, really good. So professional, such high standards, artistically satisfying, I could go on, or you can look it up, excellent in every way! But...

I previously attended a University of Rhode Island Guitar festival (2015?) because I was hoping to sell guitars in New England, and more importantly because I wanted to meet my YouTube hero, South African guitarist Derrick Gripper. He is one of the all time great musicians, period. Now a friend. It was cool to visit New England, classy old-world vibe, far from my west coast home. And most importantly I got to hear and know Derek Gripper!

Well, much later, last year, in 2024 I deliberately, decidedly and determinably retired from business, very much in part because of a kind of PTSD from multiple FUBAR airline experiences, and more especially from happy contentment in my bucolic home, music, and family life in glorious California. I’m very happy here.

To everything is a season…no more airlines, no more guitar shows. No more bureaucracy. Just community, family and music. That was my very good resolve. But…

Festival founder/director Adam Levin is a very persuasive person, and then in October 2025, I last-minute ended up — kicking and screaming — going by airplanes traveling from California to Rhode Island and back. I was a contracted guest speaker and exhibitor, complaining the whole way. Annoying everyone around me. But then, arriving in the East I gloriously met up with wonderful friends, old and new, and touched base with memories, moments, thoughts and plans again and again. I loved every minute with these people, and now wish we could live together always, for another 50 years at least!

As I was leaving home toward the east, I did ship a recent home-made guitar for the exhibit, FedEx, but it too-late arrived a half hour after my lecture, which was pretty funny. In fact, its lateness did relieve me of having to present this new example instrument or — god forbid, play it myself—and in this lecture I had to just spin out a spider thread of biographical reminders, mental visual descriptions, and funny reminiscences, while at the same time realizing that most of all hopes and plans are only half fulfilled, and that’s if you’re lucky. So be lucky!

Don’t mistake, that late-to-arrive elusive shipped-back-and-forth guitar is a wonderful instrument! Magical. It’s just that thinking about it is sometimes the sweetest pleasure of all...

This is the talk I wound up spinning out, just under an hour. Talking is much easier than making, playing, composing guitar, and living it all.

Actually, no. Living it all is far and away the best. Lucky. Lucky.

(Reflections from) Kenny Hill

11/18/25

---