Guitar Man, Cleveland’s only real superhero, the man charged with saving the city one song at a time, died Dec. 14. He was 64 years old. He is survived by his sister, Donna.
Known to many as Eli Fletcher and to few as Keith Thornhill, Guitar Man was a Cleveland icon. For years, he could be found in his red-and-blue costume performing music across the city: on East Fourth Street, on West 25th Street, at Edgewater Park, at the West Side Market, at the Hessler Street Fair, and anywhere that the starry-eyed dreamers of the city might wander. He could dazzle a crowd with a personalized song, and he was thrilled to celebrate someone’s birthday.
“The thing that he said most often was that he’s got to go and save Cleveland,” his friend Belinda Warren tells Scene. “He loved his city. He absolutely loved Cleveland.”
In 2015, Scene published a feature on the life and times of Guitar Man
; we spent time on the streets with him and hung around his home on the west side, where he revealed his superhero origin story. He was a lifetime performer, a man drawn to the joy of showbiz. His career was rooted in stage design and lighting and audio engineering, including stints with