Tuesday, November 11, 2008

My guitar history

My first guitar was a Harmony acoustic archtop my folks bought around 1957 for about $40. It wasn't a great guitar, but it was just what I needed to begin learning to play. Many years later my mother told me that my repetitious practicing was more than a little nervewracking for her and Dad. Fortunately for all of us I graduated from high school in 1961 and left home shortly afterward. I didn't take my guitar with me, but I didn't forget about it either. When I quit college and went back home, the first thing I did was buy a barely used Gibson electric guitar and an amplifier. It was an ES225 with a single pickup and it was at least 10 times easier to play than the old archtop Harmony. I had that guitar for over 20 years and used it enough that it really needed new frets by the time I sold it at one of my wife's garage sales. I can't remember why I sold it, but now I sure wish I hadn't. The guy that bought it called me a few days later just to thank me for selling it to him. It was only a few years later that I decided that I couldn't live without a guitar to play and I bought a new Howard Roberts signature Epiphone electric guitar from Schmitt music in Brooklyn Center, MN. Since then I have expanded my collection to include a Tacoma 12-string acoustic, a Taylor 710-CE acoustic electric, and 2 Martin dreadnoughts, a D-15 and a D-41 Special. Sometimes I think I don't need that many guitars, but I really enjoy having them, and I do play all of them at least occasionally. Now that I'm retired I have begun playing in several local jam sessions and it is great fun to get together with a bunch of other people who also really enjoy playing music and singing

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