Bill Anderson

Country icon Bill Anderson had a very special reunion on Saturday, August 8th. He was reunited with a guitar he lost over 50 years ago, thanks to an Arizona pawn shop owner named Mike Grauer. According to the "Tennessean," the guitar was brought in to Bell Road Pawn in Phoenix, and after the owner failed to return for the guitar or respond to messages from Grauer, the pawn shop owner began to restore the water- and mold-damaged instrument. It was then that Grauer noticed "This guitar belongs to Bill Anderson" inside the guitar's sound hole, and so he reached out to Anderson's secretary to try to reunite the instrument with its owner. Anderson is unsure how he lost the guitar in the first place, but is thankful to have been reunited with the authentic Grammer guitar, given to him by its original owner, Billy Grammer.

Instead of asking for a monetary reward or payment for the return of the guitar, Grauer asked instead if he could visit the Grand Ole Opry with his wife, Wendie, for their fifth wedding anniversary. Anderson gratefully obliged, introducing them on stage after paying their way out to Nashville. Anderson may never know how he lost the guitar or what happened to the instrument in those fifty-plus years he was separated from it, but it will certainly remain a prized possession, and Anderson will remain thankful to the couple who were so diligent in bringing them back together.

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