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SALT LAKE CITY — At East Murray Holladay Road and Holladay Boulevard you'll find the intersection of personal grooming and 12-bar melancholic American music.
That's where Jarone Wedig opened his Blues Barbershop.
"Music's just that stuff that makes sense to me. Haircuts make sense to me," said the barber and blues musician.
Wedig says he started playing a harmonica when he was 5 or 6 years old and a few years later picked up a pair of shears.
"Yeah, I was tired of getting picked on by bullies in junior high for having my mother's haircut on my head," he said.
"In high school I was looking for every excuse to not go to math class or anything that felt hard to me, so the special-ed teacher never kicked me out of that classroom when I brought guitars and clippers and hung out all day," he said.
"And that's just how I've been connecting with folks ever since."
At the shop, he sells haircuts and guitar strings, straight razor shaves and cigar box guitars. There's pomade upstairs and a recording studio in the basement.
"This is the engine of my life," Wedig said. "It's my masterpiece. It's an art project. It's a gathering place. It's the engine that runs my truck."
It's where a year ago, he met Seth Christensen.
"I have a history of going in to stray barbers," Christensen said. "My hair doesn't grow quick enough for my taste. I would like to come in every week."
They talked about cars. Christensen told Wedig about the '68 Camaro RS he and his son, Sam, are restoring.
In high school I was looking for every excuse to not go to math class or anything that felt hard to me, so the special-ed teacher never kicked me out of that classroom when I brought guitars and clippers and hung out all day.
–Jarone Wedig, Blues Barbershop owner
"The next thing you know," Wedig says, "We're like, dude, we should throw a car show."
Now this week, Wedig's barbershop is sponsoring a car show to benefit Christensen's ALS Crowd project. The former Microsoft and Intel executive and his wife, Amy, are trying to create a large-scale, open-source database to share ALS patient, medical and scientific data and push ALS research forward.
Christensen, himself, has ALS.
"We've known about it for 150 years," he said. "We still don't know what causes it or the disease process or if it even is a so-called disease. It's a big puzzle we need to crack."
While Christensen waits for medical progress, he visits Wedig, he said, for the healing touch of a barber.
"It's a weird thing," Christensen said. "I don't want to be overstating it but having someone touch your head is an intimate thing.
- WHEN: Saturday, 9/19 — Noon - 6 p.m.
- WHERE: Holladay City Hall, 4580 South 2300 East Holladay, UT
- COST: $5 suggested donation
"You're not only connecting with him actually cutting your hair, but he is connecting with what is going on in my life and my family's life. I'm not sure he realizes what he's doing physically or emotionally with the people who are here."
Wedig said what heals customers like Christensen heals the barber as well.
"I get to meet people like Seth," he said, "and learn what it really means to be a barber. … It's about those people that sit in your chair. And I have all kinds of problems in my life but I when I walk through this door and I come over to this corner and say 'who's next' they all go away."
The Holladay Car Show will be held Saturday, Sept. 19, from noon to 6 p.m. It will benefit the ALS Crowd Crowdcare foundation and the Christensen family.
