Dorothy: The guitar that made Kevin Morby a musician
Texan folk singer Kevin Morby puts his heart on his sleeve, but he occasionally also wears it slung around his shoulder in the shape of a fiery red guitar.
The Fender Jaguar that accompanied his music while in Woods, The Babies, and as a solo artist, took on a whole life of its own. This always becomes a very real possibility when any guitar is given a human name… especially if it’s named after a real person.
It all started after a few months of touring with The Babies, the Brooklyn rock band he started with his roommate, Cassie Ramone. Upon returning to New York in 2010 with a hard-earned $1,000 in his pocket, Morby was faced with a dilemma that would bind him to the success of his career.
“I could have paid three months’ rent with it,” he told Uncut in 2019, “But I decided I was gonna buy a nice guitar”.
It was a pivotal moment for the fledgling musician who hardly hailed from lavish wealth. So, the Ferrari of six-strings that he’s been bringing along on stage with him ever since was sentimentally named Dorothy, after Morby’s grandmother.
Much like going to the gym just because you’ve already paid the year’s membership, choosing Dorothy put all the man’s eggs into one passionate basket, and gave him the push he needed to fully commit to music.
“It was like putting a tattoo on my forehead or something: ‘I’m gonna have to keep pursuing music because I’ve bought this nice thing’,” he said, and years later, after a steady stream of richly deserved solo success, he’s still stringing his commitment along.
His beloved guitar pushed him to a number two spot on Billboard’s Heatseekers list for his 2019 album Oh My God, as well as on countless festival stages, and to international acclaim for the depth of his songwriting skills.
It gently nudged him along as he honed his craft, which he wholeheartedly admitted to be linked to his musical legends, saying, “I think my whole goal is just to be like my heroes, whether that’s someone as famous as Leonard Cohen, or someone as admirable as Bill Callahan. The thing about both of those people, along with Nina Simone, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, whoever, is that they consistently put out good work.”
His love for the guitar that turned him from an aspirational singer to a decorated musician didn’t stop at an affectionate name and a shoutout during interviews. Morby wrote a whole ballad for Dorothy in his 2016 album Singing Saw, played as if it were a true love letter to the instrument. The elated ‘Dorothy’ encapsulates the pulsing excitement of the man strumming on it, and is an upbeat recollection of nostalgic desires from his youth.
“Being a musician, when you find yourself at home and off of tour, all the people, places and things you encountered on tour seem like some wild dream,” Morby said about the song.
Adding, “Dorothy, my guitar, represents the people I’ve encountered and experiences I’ve had over the past seven years of touring, because she has always been there with me.”
For those whose work requires constant movement, it’s rare to find a companion as loyal as Dorothy to call home.
