A GIFT FOR SONG

Screen composer carries on musical inheritance

When his dad gave him his own father’s black 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard, Chris Arena didn’t take the guitar and run with it.

“It was heavy,” said Arena, 31. “You play it for an hour standing up and your shoulder is on fire. Back then they used real heavy wood. When I was a kid, I couldn’t hold it. It was always out of tune. I didn’t have an amplifier. I couldn’t hear it. So I had no interest in it.”

Arena stuck to his Fender Stratocaster, which he played in the Lausanne Collegiate School band, and his Gibson 335, which he played in high school rock bands. He also used a Martin 328 acoustic guitar to compose his original songs.

Since then, Arena’s songs have appeared in TV shows such as “Pretty Little Liars” and “Ravenswood.” His song “Dreams,” which became a theme song for two characters on “General Hospital,” was nominated for a Daytime Emmy for Best Original Song in a Drama Series. “Turn Me On,” his first song for a motion picture, will be featured in “Random Tropical Paradise.”

On a recent visit to Memphis, Arena, who now lives in Venice Beach, California, recorded songs at Ardent Studios for his new album.

He said his love for guitar dates to his school days. “My dad taught me how to play ‘Wipe Out’ on the guitar in second grade. I went into school the next day, and I showed my friends. My friends used to make fun of me. I had real big ears. They used to call me ‘Dumbo.’ And I came in one day, and I played this song and everybody started clapping. I had a lot of friends after that.”

Arena also played basketball at Lausanne. “I used to play first half basketball. Then I’d run and change real quick, and I’d play with the band at halftime. Then I’d change back and play basketball...”

The late Joe Arena, Chris’ grandfather, gave his black Les Paul guitar, which he bought for about $250, to Arena’s dad, Steven Arena, who played in funk cover bands when he was younger. “My grandfather was

a jazz musician.”

His grandfather “always used to wear black. And he wanted a black guitar. So he custom-ordered a black Les Paul in 1958. It came back in 1959, which was the most highly coveted year (for Les Paul guitars).”

Arena was 22 when his dad told him he could have the guitar if he really was serious about music.

His father kept the guitar “under his bed and in his closet for 20-something years. He knew it was worth something, but we didn’t have any idea what it was worth. About 10 or 15 years ago, we had it appraised. Some people say it’s the first $1 million Les Paul. We’ve had all sorts of appraisals ranging from $300,000 to $500,000.”

Joe Restivo is a local soul and jazz guitarist and Gibson guitar enthusiast.

“Fifty-nine was a banner year for that company,” Restivo said. “It’s just considered a year that they were really making highquality instruments.”

The guitar currently is on loan to The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles.

After he graduated from the University of Memphis, Arena attended the Billboard/Hollywood Reporter Film/TV Music Conference in Los Angeles. Artists, publishers and managers dropped their CDs into a bin, which speakers randomly pulled out during the event. Panelist Paul S. Glass, now “General Hospital” supervising music director/composer, pulled out Arena’s CD. He said, “I like the first song. Come and find me after the conference.”

“That was in 2010,” Arena said. “And for six years I sent him a new song every month. And he always got back to me the next day.”

About a year and a half ago, Glass contacted Arena about a guitar lick, a verse and some lyrics he’d sent him. Glass told Arena he had a gig for him and asked if he wanted to write a song for the show.

That song, “Dreams,” originally was used on the show during a sex scene between two popular characters, Arena said. “Dreams” was nominated for a Daytime Emmy last March.

Said Glass: “I think Chris has a great gift for songwriting that is extremely sincere and intimate. He also delivers a vocal with the same vibe, something that is so powerful in the kind of storytelling that we do.”

Arena played his grandfather’s black Les Paul last April at a pre-Emmy party at the Gibson Baldwin Showroom in Beverly Hills. An armed security guard, hired to transport the guitar from the museum to the gig, stayed “glued to the guitar.”

“I played ‘Dreams.’ I played other songs. Then I played a little blues guitar.”

The guitar is “still heavy,” Arena said. “It’s real heavy.”