Clapton's Guitar is a book-length profile of luthier Wayne Henderson. Clapton himself doesn't show up much in the book. His guitar is there for most of it, beginning as spruce and rosewood boards and emerging as Henderson's take on a classic 1930s Martin 000-28. The real star of the book is Henderson himself.

The one-sentence version of the book is this: Henderson's waiting list is about 10 years long and Clapton went directly to the end of it. Henderson, an accomplished bluegrass guitarist, was only dimly of who Clapton was when he received the commission. Old Slowhand would probably still be waiting if Allen St. John, a sports writer for the Wall Street Journal hadn't figured out that there was a book in there somewhere. St. John came up with the idea that got Henderson focused on Clapton's instrument, and then spent many days in his shop and nights in his guest room applying gentle pressure. In the end, it only took seven years.

Henderson, born in 1947, is mostly self taught as a luthier. He started building guitars as a teenager; in his twenties he spent three months as a repairman for George Gruhn's shop in Nashville, where he extracted the secrets of countless old Martins and Gibsons. Now he works in a converted chicken coop in Rugby, Virginia, turning out, at a relaxed pace, some of the best guitars in the world.

Part of St. John's task is to understand how that happens: how one man, working alone, can create such wonderful instruments. There's a lot of talk about wood, tools and old Martins, and in that talk is much of the immense charm of this book. Countless times Henderson pulls a dusty guitar case out of the closet and withdraws a different old Martin. Most are battered, and have a story behind them; an ancient Henderson (#7) with a bullet hole in it shows up, too. Each guitar gets passed around and played, and each yields a lesson of one kind or another. You get the clear impression that Wayne Henderson's teachers all worked in Nazareth in the 1920s and 1930s.

St. John provides some context and set dressing in conversations with luthier TJ Thompson and with Kerry Keane, the guitar expert at Christie's auction house. He takes us to the Crossroads auction of Clapton's guitars, and takes Wayne to a Red Sox playoff game at Fenway, where the Sox pull one out against the hated Yankees. He even delivers the guitar, #326, to Lee Dickson, Clapton's guitar tech.

But the real action takes place in the shop. Surrounded by talkative friends (the "General Loafers"), a few power tools, one or two dogs, one sports writer and clouds of sawdust, Henderson builds time machines, and watching him work is a joy. It's in the shop that the answer to the question "how does he do it?" emerges, and it's satisfying but not particularly helpful. He does it by being who he is. The art is the self-portrait of the artist. Only Wayne Henderson can make these guitars, and he can't make any guitars but these. His eye for detail, his knowledge of old guitars, his skill with a pen knife, his ideas about what's important, his standard of perfection, his way of living his life - it's all inseparably part of his skill.

If you'd like one of your own, there are basically only two ways to get one. People never seem to sell or trade them, so forget about a used one. You can order one from Wayne, and be prepared to wait ten years or more until he gets around to making it. Or you can win one at the annual Wayne C. Henderson Music Festival in Rugby, Virginia. The competition is limited to the first 20 players who show up. You can play any style you want. And if you win, you receive a free Henderson, likely completed only hours before. It's the third Saturday in June every year, rain or shine and, unless you're real patient, it's your best shot. See you there.

Clapton's Guitar, by Allen St. John. Paperback edition published by Free Press in 2006.

Tom Heany