Local San Diego musician Bob Woldin honored those lost on September 11 with his musical talent and a bit of American history, performing with his Liberty Tree guitar at a special 9/11 event held aboard the U.S.S. Midway, a decommissioned aircraft carrier which serves as a museum and a reminder of the city’s rich naval legacy.

The event’s organizers included retired fire department officials from New York. Woldin and his band Fandango donated their time to perform and played to a crowd of 2,000.

As a former high school teacher, Woldin appreciates the American history the Liberty Tree guitar represents, and currently owns four of the Taylor limited editions in his family. Each guitar was purchased at a different time.

The story of the Liberty Tree guitar embodies the American spirit of resilience and innovation. With deep roots in the original 13 colonies, each Liberty Tree served as a meeting place. In 1999, the last of the living Liberty Trees was felled by a hurricane on the campus of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland and went on to be crafted into a limited series of guitars. In 2002, Taylor released the first in the series, a Grand Concert with back and sides of tulip poplar from the tree. The guitar featured a laser-etched inlay of the Declaration of Independence, a rosette with 13 stars (one for each of the original Colonies) around one-half of the soundhole, opposite an early battle pennant that flew during the Revolution. A depiction of the first post-Revolution American flag is inlaid in dyed maple on the peghead. The company later released a Liberty Tree Baby Taylor as well as a limited run of 50 Liberty Tree T5s, each of which was inscribed with the name of a different U.S. state.