One man's quest for his dream guitar inspires him to explore the instrument's largely untold history.

What was it about a small, humble folk instrument that allowed it to become an American icon? The guitar represents freedom, the open road, protest and rebellion, the blues, youth, lost love, and sexuality. The guitar was picked up by everyone, miners and society ladies, lumberjacks and presidents' wives, Hawaiians, African-Americans, Cajuns, jazz players, spiritualists, cowboys, and teenagers. In time, it became America's instrument, its soundtrack.

Tim Brookes explored these ideas while on a quest for his dream guitar that took him to Vermont's Green Mountains where an amiable curmudgeon master guitarmaker, Rick Davis, chose a rare piece of cherry wood and went to work with saws and rasps. When Tim wasn't breathing over Rick's shoulder, he was trying to unravel why the guitar is "wall-to-wall popular in the United States" and, to a lesser degree, throughout the world.

A regular commentator on National Public Radio's Sunday Weekend Edition, Tim Brookes has also had his work appear in National Geographic, Outside, American History, and Vintage Guitar.