Calgary woman shocked to see Tracy Chapman playing her guitar at the Grammys

Calgary's Judy Theet was shocked to see the guitar she built in 1999 being played by Tracy Chapman during the 'Fast Car' performance at the Grammys

Music has always been a passion for Judy Threet but it wasn’t until the former philosophy professor starting making instruments that her talent hit a high note, with the fruits of her labour making a Grammys debut.

While teaching at the University of Calgary and Mount Royal University, she joined a local folk band. That’s where she met Michael Heiden, the band’s violinist and a gifted luthier.

“A friend of mine that I was in a band with built a guitar for me and I started hanging around at his studio while he was building it and I got the bug for building,” Threet said.

Not long after, she quit academics and switched careers. She said she went into the department office and rescinded her application.

“I think I’m going to take some time off and build some guitars,” she recalled thinking at the time. “So that’s what I did.”

In 1999, she crafted a guitar and tried to sell it in Calgary with no luck. She ended up shipping it to Griffin Stringed Instruments, a music store in Palo Alto, Calif.

It was there that a certain folk musician by the name of Tracy Chapman walked into the the store in 2001 looking for a smaller guitar.

“She wandered in one day and Willie, the guy that was working the floor, said, ‘What are you looking for?’ And she said, ‘My shoulder has been hurting because I’ve been playing this great big dreadnought guitar. I’m looking for a smaller guitar.’ And he just reached over and handed her that one. And she eventually left the store with it,” Threet said.