An Elk River Boy made good

"Dirty Me, Dirty Me, I'm Disgusted With Myself"

How about "Dirty Me, Dirty Me, I'm Disgusted With Myself?" That one makes me cry -- at least that's what Briscoe Darling said when Andy Taylor asked him to play it on "The Andy Griffith Show." Although nobody ever played "Dirty Me...," Andy Griffith presented some of the world's best, although forgotten music. His show was part of the revival that saved bluegrass from obscurity. Sometimes, it was just Andy sitting on a porch with his guitar. The most memorable were the half-dozen episodes where the Darling family, played by the Dillards' bluegrass band and led by jug-playing Denver Pyle, came to down, pickin' and causing trouble.

On the show, Andy tried to show, in a humorous way, a representative slice of Appalachia, the North Carolina he knew as a boy. A major part of Appalachia is its music. That music was also a major part of Andy.

The guitar you see Andy play in the the show, as well as later in "Matlock" is his treasured 1956 Martin D-18, a guitar that he rescued from a Hollywood prop department. The movie was Andy's film debut, "A Face in the Crowd," in which Andy plays an Arkansas guitar player who starts the film as a hobo and ends as a corrupt and evil media star. The prop department needed a guitar for the movie, so they bought a Martin and spray-painted it black and glued sequins on it spelling "Lonesome" and "Momma." Despite the fact, that this quality instrument had been ruined, Andy knew a fine guitar when he played it. After the movie was completed, Andy took the guitar and nobody in the prop department cared enough to notice it was missing. Andy spent nine days carefully removing the sequins and sanding the guitar to bare wood. In the process, he lost all the scroll decal and the pickguard.

Andy took it to New York and handed it John D'Angelico, a legendary guitar builder, to have it restored. He was able to breathe new life into the instrument and restored it, without a pickguard at Andy's request.

Enjoy the clips below:

Midnight special

There is a Time

Doug's Tune (Dirty Me, Dirty Me, I'm Disgusted With Myself" denied

Andy sings "Whoa Mule"

A Face In the Crowd

Andy sings "New River Train"