Phil 'Skin' Bohanon, 59, of Newnan, jammed with friends, guitar

By Shane Blatt

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Phil Bohanon’s pride and joy took the form of a blonde guitar.

For more than 30 years, he jammed on it with his friends, slept with it by his bedside and cleaned it with his underwear.

“That guitar was kind of his right hand,” said Barbara Bohanon, his wife of 29 years. “Even when we would visit relatives, he would have the guitar in the van.”

Mr. Bohanon — called “Skin” because of his long fingers and tall, slender frame — started playing the Gibson acoustic guitar in the early ’70s. He was a member of Albatross, a warm-up band for Lynyrd Skynyrd, friends and relatives said.

“He was a roadie in [Lynyrd Skynyrd’s] early years, before they really cut albums,” said Steve Pollard, a friend of 35 years.

Skin loved Southern rock, country, bluegrass, and rhythm and blues. He could sing and play nearly anything — from Eric Clapton’s “Please Be With Me” to the Allman Brothers’ “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” — although he never had lessons and didn’t know how to read music, his wife said.

“He learned everything by ear,” Mrs. Bohanon said. “He could hear a song on the radio and within two hours be playing it. He was just so gifted when it came to music.”

Phillip “Skin” Bohanon, 59, of Newnan died Sunday of cancer at home. A celebration of his life will be at 2 p.m. this Sunday at Macedonia Baptist Church in Newnan. The church is in charge of arrangements.

Born in 1950 in Boaz, Ala., Skin grew up in Riverdale. He attended Riverdale High School but dropped out to take care of his cancer-stricken mother.

After she died, Mr. Bohanon enlisted in the Army in 1971 and served in the Vietnam War. He left the service after two years.

For a living, Skin did carpentry and ceramic-tile work, but music was his passion, Mrs. Bohanon said. He’d often play at bars and family get-togethers, but mostly, he simply enjoyed “pickin’ and grinnin’ ” with friends.

“You feel like ‘pickin’? That was a dumb question if you asked Skin,” said Mr. Pollard, among the three or four old-timers who would gather at one another’s homes to jam on their guitars.

“I know my neighbors used to get so upset when they saw the cars come in,” Mrs. Bohanon said. “Sometimes they’d go all night long,” playing songs, writing lyrics and drinking beer.

About 10 years ago, Mrs. Bohanon put together a notebook, titled “Phil’s Lyrics.” It included 573 pages of music, alphabetized by genre. It was just a tiny fraction of the songs he knew and wrote, she said.

After his son, Brandon, suffered a brain injury in 1997, Skin would sit in the hospital room, playing music for his son.

“He loved his family. He loved his friends. He loved his music,” Mr. Pollard said.

And he loved his guitar. Mr. Pollard recalled the day Skin bought it in the ’70s.

“Man, it was just like a baby coming home from a hospital,” he said. “He just wouldn’t let it down.”

To clean the guitar’s strings, Skin kept a pair of white underwear inside the case, saying the cotton “helps the sound,” Mrs. Bohanon said.

Skin’s ashes will be placed inside the instrument. The hole in the guitar’s body will be covered with a specially made plaque to symbolically entomb him, she said.

“I can’t think of a better place for Phil to be put,” Mr. Pollard said.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Bohanon is survived by his son, Brandon Bohanon of Newnan; his daughter, Laura Whelchel of Marietta; his sister, Diane Ussery of Griffin, and four grandchildren.