July 31, 2024 • 73 mins
We launched the Acoustic Guitar Podcast two years ago and the show has grown a lot in that time, thanks to listeners like you! This re-release of our first-ever episode includes Part Two which previously had only been available to our Patreon supporters.
In this episode, we share stories of first guitars. Tune in for renowned musicians Eric Bibb, Bruce Cockburn, Courtney Hartman, Richard Thompson, Badi Assad, Sharon Isbin, and Tommy Emmanuel; heartwarming, inspiring, and surprising tales from the community; plus previously unheard recordings of Doc Watson and Michael Hedges; and Dick Boak demonstrates the first instrument he ever built, long before his storied career with C.F. Martin & Co began.
Additional resources:
- Learn more about the artists who shared their stories in this episode:
- If you want to keep your first (or second, third, or 30th!) guitar in top playing condition, check out the Acoustic Guitar Owner’s Manual and Acoustic Guitar Care & Maintenance guides.
- Join our Patreon community to access bonus podcast episodes, exclusive live workshops, and more.
The Acoustic Guitar Podcast theme music is composed by Adam Perlmutter and performed for this episode by Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers.
This episode is hosted by Nick Grizzle and Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, produced by Tanya Gonzalez, and directed and edited by Joey Lusterman. Executive producers are Lyzy Lusterman and Stephanie Campos Dal Broi.
The Acoustic Guitar Podcast is produced by the team at Acoustic Guitar magazine, including:
- Publisher: Lyzy Lusterman
- Editorial Director: Adam Perlmutter
- Managing Editor: Kevin Owens
- Creative Director: Joey Lusterman
- Digital Content Director: Stephanie Campos Dal Broi
- Digital Content Manager: Nick Grizzle
- Marketing Services Manager: Tanya Gonzalez
Special thanks to our listeners who support the show on Patreon.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Acoustic Guitar Podcast.
I'm Nick Grizzle.
We started this podcast twoyears ago and the show has grown
a lot in that time, thanks tolisteners like you.
We're marking this milestone bysharing our first ever episode
again.
If you started listening to theAcoustic Guitar Podcast
recently, you may not have goneback far enough in our catalog
to have heard this one yet, butif you've been with us since the
(00:22):
beginning, there's stillsomething new for you here.
Heard this one yet, but ifyou've been with us since the
beginning, there's stillsomething new for you here.
This is my first guitar in itsentirety part one as published
in 2022, plus part two, which upuntil now, has only been
available to our Patreonsupporters.
We hope you enjoy this episodeand we hope you'll consider
joining us on Patreon to access20 bonus podcast episodes, plus
(00:43):
exclusive lessons, liveworkshops and much more.
You'll find it all atpatreoncom slash acoustic guitar
plus.
Welcome to the first episode ofthe Acoustic Guitar Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
We are so excited to explore the world of acoustic
guitars with you.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I'm Nick Grizzle and I'm Jeffrey Pepper Rogers.
And in this first episode we'regoing to be sharing stories of
your first guitars.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Everyone starts their journey differently, but we all
shared a desire to get ourhands on a guitar and start
figuring out how to make musicwith it.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
So we reached out to some of our favorite guitarists,
as well as readers of AcousticGuitar Magazine and
AcousticGuitarcom, to ask themto share their stories with us.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
This first one comes from Eric Bibb, great roots and
blues guitarist and singer.
Hi folks, this is Eric Bibb.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
The first guitar that I remember playing, that I
actually got my little fingersaround, was my dad's
parlor-sized Galeano guitar.
Galeano guitars were madeprobably by the Oscar Schmidt
factory in New Jersey.
We lived in New York, okay, aparlor-sized Oscar Schmidt
factory in New Jersey.
We lived in New York.
Okay, a parlor-sized, beautifulGaleano, you know parlor-sized
(02:33):
acoustic guitar.
Okay, that was not myinstrument.
When I was about seven, let'ssay three years later, my
parents bought me my firstguitar.
It was a cheap plywood guitar.
The action was too high for mytender fingers and I really
struggled with it.
I had a teacher I think hisname was Vic, who taught me that
tune Yellow Bird.
The Mills Brothers have a greatversion.
(02:54):
Anyway, that really wasn't mything.
I wanted to actually accompanymyself singing like Odetta, like
Pete Seeger, like Josh White,you know, like those folks.
Okay.
So the next thing that happenedwas, by the way, I don't have
that Galeano guitar and I don'thave that cheapo plywood guitar.
My next big guitar moment wasMyron Weiss, a great guitar
(03:16):
teacher down in Grange Village,who I studied classical guitar
with.
So we learned stuff by Soar andyou know that kind of stuff,
carcassi, great stuff.
Anyway, I do remember borrowingfrom my dad's accompanist,
stuart Scharf, a great guitarista nylon string Gibson.
That really became my favoritego-to guitar for a while.
(03:39):
And then my friend Tim Ut lentme his Guild Guild 12 string and
that was like the bomb.
Gotta go, folks, but love it,keep playing.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Ciao, great story I had a chance to open for Eric
Bibb, once a fantastic performer, and from there we are going to
go to Bruce Coburn, who I hadthe pleasure of interviewing
numerous times over the yearsand I believe, wrote about in
the very first issue of AcousticGuitar in 1990, right up
(04:15):
through a recent lessoninterview that we did.
That is included in this brandnew book called Play Guitar Like
the Great Singer Songwriters.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
My first guitar was one I found in my grandmother's
attic closet.
We happened to be staying therewhen I was 14 years old,
waiting for the house my fatherwas having built to be finished,
and so I had this room up inthe attic and I went rooting
through the closet one day and Ihad this room up in the attic.
And I went rooting through thecloset one day and I found this
beat-up cardboard guitar caseand inside was an equally
(04:50):
beat-up guitar, small, dark,scratched up thing and it had a
raised nut on it for playingHawaiian style, which I took off
and I could then at least makethe strings hit the fingerboard,
but I had no idea what to dowith it.
I'd taken lessons on trumpetand clarinet before that, but
(05:12):
knew nothing about guitar.
But I started pounding away onit, trying to play rock and roll
riffs, and I painted gold starson the top of it and posed in
front of the mirror with it, youknow.
And my parents got nervous andsaid OK, we can give you, we'll
support you, we'll get youguitar lessons.
(05:33):
You have to promise to take thelessons and learn to play
properly, quote-unquote.
And you have to also promisenot to grow sideburns and get a
leather jacket.
This is 1959, and everyone wasworried about the association
between rock and roll and teengangs and stuff like that, so
they didn't want me going inthat direction.
The first lesson I took, theteacher said you can't learn on
(05:57):
that guitar, it's just it's too.
It's not good.
So I got a K arch top and I hadthat for quite a long time.
I took lessons on that and kindof wish I still had it actually
the first tune I learned toplay for myself off the radio.
I was, you know, the guitar.
(06:17):
The teacher was teaching methings to play, but I was very
proud of myself for being ableto figure out Walk, don't Run
off the radio.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
So we have one more artist story to share here.
This one's from CourtneyHartman, who's a great young
flat picker and indie folksongwriter, and here is her
story.
Speaker 7 (06:43):
This is Courtney Hartman and my first guitar was
so adorable.
I was about 10 or 11 and myparents made it a point to just
have a lot of instruments aroundthe house.
I was taking violin lessons butguitar was like this kind of
free reign instrument.
And so there was a littleMontana guitar that my parents
(07:06):
bought in downtown Loveland at amusic store and it was kind of
golden, red and had nylonstrings and was a perfect little
size and the amazing thing isthat that guitar all these years
later still plays in tune andit sounds amazing and it was so
easy to play.
I remember just loving how easyit was for my fingers to press
(07:30):
down the strings and have veryfond memories of that guitar.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
And we actually had a first guitar feature story in
the first issue of AcousticGuitar Magazine.
Jeff, you were the foundingeditor of Acoustic Guitar, so
you actually worked on thatfeature.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I did, and that was one of the things we did to kick
off the magazine, and so it'sgreat to come back and kick off
the podcast with it.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yeah, and I mean we'll get more on that later.
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself.
How long were you with themagazine and what are you doing
nowadays?
Speaker 3 (08:04):
yeah, thanks.
So, um, I was the foundingeditor when it was a tiny little
company putting out acousticguitar and strings magazine.
I was the editor for the first10 years and then switched over
to uh to be a contributingeditor, and I'm called editor at
large these days and stilldoing lots of writing for the
(08:25):
magazine.
But I'm a guitar player,songwriter lifelong since I was
a teenager.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I'm a drummer but I do have a guitar.
It's a Washburn from about 99,2000, I think I remember I
wanted it because I saw somebodyplaying this acoustic guitar
plugged into an amp withdistortion and I thought that
was the coolest sound.
Now I hear that I'm like thatis not the coolest sound, but I
(09:00):
wouldn't shut up about it.
So my dad, for Christmas,months later, got me this
acoustic electric Washburn.
That's my first guitar story,getting inspired with a sound
that I would never do now, butstill having the guitar around
to play as a constant musicalcompanion.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
I think you ought to get that thing, plug it in and
crank up the distortion and tryit again.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
What about you?
What was your first guitar?
Speaker 3 (09:28):
I had a Sears guitar that my parents gave me when I
was 12.
That kind of got me started.
My older brother, three yearsolder, had started when he was
around the same age, and so thatwas actually one of the
greatest things about learningis that we just started doing
music together by the time I was14 or 15, we were performing
(09:51):
and everything.
But the Sears guitar didn'tlast too long.
I got a Yamaha that I sort ofconsider my Yamaha Dreadnought,
that I consider sort of my realfirst guitar, consider my Yamaha
Dreadnought, that I considersort of my real first guitar.
But I just got to share the sadthing that happened to my very
first the Sears guitar, which isI was in high school and I got
(10:14):
this Yamaha and so I was goingto figure it.
I would just give the Searsguitar to somebody else who
would want it.
And a friend of mine said ohyeah, I would love to have that.
Can I have it?
And so I gave him the guitar,figuring he really wants to
learn guitar.
I'm doing this nice thing formy friend.
And about 10 minutes later hecame back with just the neck of
(10:36):
it and he had just gone andsmashed my guitar.
No, he was into the who orsomething.
Maybe he'd just seen.
Animal House?
Yeah, I don't know.
So that was a little sad, I gotto say it was not really what I
was thinking was going to bethe fate of my first guitar, but
anyway it got me going.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
With our first guitar stories out of the way, let's
dive into our first call-in.
Here is Richard Thompson.
Jeff, what do you know aboutRichard Thompson?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Well, he's the incredible triple threat as an
amazing songwriter and aguitarist and performer and
everything.
He kind of blows the fuses ofguitarists wherever he goes.
He's so skilled, so good and sowitty and all that.
(11:27):
So I've loved interviewing hima couple times over the years
and he's a very thoughtful guy.
So I'm excited to hear what hehad to say about his first
guitar.
Speaker 6 (11:41):
Well, I'll give you the whole story.
So my father was in the policepolice and he was working in the
West End of London where allthe guitar shops were, and one
of his old army buddies fromWorld War II ran a guitar shop
and they were throwing out thischeap Spanish guitar because the
cider split open.
And my father said well, youknow, I trained as a joiner, you
(12:03):
know as a house carpenter.
You know I'll take it and I'llfix it up, because you know he
used to play the guitar beforethe war and he was a big Django
Reinhardt fan and everything.
So he hadn't had a guitar foryears.
So he brings it home and heglues it up and by that time I'm
(12:24):
a big guitar fan.
You know, everybody in rock androll was posing, if not playing
a guitar, and my sister also haddesigns on it as well.
My father, of course, haddesigns on it, but I kind of
grabbed it and possessed it andit was really, you know, it was
a cheap nylon-strung guitar.
It probably cost at retail, youknow, at at the time about £5,
(12:47):
£10.
And it did me for a few months.
But then I started takingclassical guitar lessons and my
teacher said you know this isreally holding you back.
You need to convince yourparents to get you something
better.
So after about six months Iditched it and I got a better
nylon-striped guitar and thatdid me for a couple of years and
(13:13):
then I got an electric guitarand then rock and roll possessed
me and the rest is history.
So 1960, the British band calledthe Shadows, a very famous
instrumental band, had a numberone hit with Apache.
So we were all trying to playApache and I got the chords down
for Apache that I could playthe melody down.
(13:34):
My sister was a big Buddy Hollyfan, so trying to play Piggy
Sue was another big step and avery useful step, because it's
basically A, d, a, e.
If you could get fluent onthose three chords, you're
making big progress.
So that was all good stuff forme.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
I love those songs that help people get started,
some things with just a fewnotes or a couple of chords and
you're off to the races.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Well, we also had some readers write in, not just
call in, so we're going to reada few throughout this episode,
and apologies if we mispronounceanybody's names.
This one is from Lee Spear, whoshares her story, and this kind
of reminds me of the power ofmusic.
She says my first guitarbelonged to one of my older
(14:34):
brothers.
He had been in a motorcycleaccident and wasn't wearing a
helmet Fortunately no brokenbones but he was pretty beat up
during the skid and had almostlost one of his ears.
My parents were telling us hisfight to keep his ear wasn't
going well and I was just 16years old at the time.
So his guitar was at our houseand I decided I would try to
(14:55):
learn to play something to cheerhim up, since he couldn't have
it in his hospital room.
I learned the sound of silencefrom Simon and Garfunkel.
I wanted it to sound like theirversion, so I plucked the
strings and didn't strum.
He was able to come home a weeklater, so I played it for him
and he was quiet at the end.
Was that okay?
I asked how long have you beenplaying?
(15:17):
He asked Just this past week.
I'm sorry if it wasn't verygood.
He laughed.
It was better than I ever was.
You keep the guitar.
You can never sell it.
Give it back to me if you don'twant to play it anymore.
Okay, that was the beginning ofmy life, with a beautiful
companion.
To manage the ups and downsthat we're all dealt, he gave me
his G10 Goya, probably made inthe 50s.
(15:40):
I'm now 63 and I still have theguitar.
It has had a little work doneon it and I play it fairly often
.
What a beautiful sound.
It always cheers my soul when Iplay it, heck, even when I
think about it.
What a sweet story, gosh.
How do you not smile afterhearing something like that?
Right, we now have a clip fromBajie Asad, a great classical
(16:04):
guitarist.
Does so many amazing innovativethings with guitar.
I've been fortunate to see herlive and wow, what a fantastic
musician.
Speaker 9 (16:14):
What about my first guitar?
So I am the sister of SajanUdayi Assad.
So when I was born, these twounbelievable musicians were
already playing the guitar, soit always had a guitar around
the house.
But if you asked me as a child,what do you want to be when you
(16:34):
grow up, I would always answerI want to be a dancer, I want to
be different, okay.
But when I was 14 years old, myfather invited me to play
chorinho with him, somethingthat he had done with my
brothers many years before.
(16:54):
And I said yes because I hadthis dream to become closer to
daddy, and it was through music.
But I had no guitar.
So, odair, let me use one ofhis guitars.
It was a Paul Fisher fromEngland then.
It had a beautiful sound, evenif back then I didn't know what
(17:19):
a beautiful sound would be.
But, believe it or not, it hasbeen the guitar I recorded all
my albums.
So this guitar is my lucky one,is still here with me and I'm
telling you the sound of it isunbelievable and very easy to
(17:40):
play, and interesting to knowalso that my brothers say that
since this guitar became mine,the sound has changed.
Nowadays it is more feminine.
We can only wonder why, but Ithink it's nature.
So this is it my impressionsabout my first guitar.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Hearing her voice there just brought back a great
memory of her coming to theacoustic guitar office around
probably mid-90s and playing forus in our conference room and
leaving us all completelyspeechless.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Some people got their guitar later in life, but, as
we know, as we all know, you arenever too old to start learning
guitar, as Bob Barry says inthis next clip.
Speaker 11 (18:36):
Rather than being a little kid, a young kid, I'm a
senior.
I was 70 years old, over 70,when I first ran across my
guitar and it happened to be mywife's brother who had passed
away, and we had everything instorage and we opened it up one
day to go through it and, lo andbehold, there was a classical
(19:00):
guitar there and I thought youknow, it's interesting.
And I thought, well, I thinkI'll mess around a little bit.
And so I went and I had itrestrung, had it taken care of,
and I decided I was going totake lessons.
And I started taking lessonsand got a little better.
I'm still not very good, but itwas all because of this guitar
(19:24):
in storage that was in mintcondition.
It just hadn't been opened.
We hadn't opened the case.
It was there and we didn't evenknow what was inside.
And there it was.
So that's my story and that'show I got started.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
I love hearing that story.
Somebody just asked me theother day I always wanted to
play, but I feel like I'm tooold.
You know is it?
Am I too old to start playing?
And I think I'll point thatperson to Bob's message here.
Good reminder that you canalways start.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yeah, it just takes that one spark of inspiration
and who knows when it's going tocome.
Never too late to start playingany instrument, especially
guitar.
In this section we're going totalk a little bit about your
experience putting together thatfirst issue of Acoustic Guitar
Magazine, jeff.
As I recall seeing thumbingthrough the archives, sharon
(20:22):
Isbin was on the cover.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Thumbing through the archives, sharon Isbin was on
the cover.
That's right.
Yeah, sharon was, and she was acolumnist in the early years of
the magazine.
It was great to work with her,and, yeah, so this was middle of
1990 when the first issue cameout and we had a whole bunch of
(20:44):
guitarists an amazing number ofguitarists who signed up to get
our premiere issue for thismagazine.
We wanted to start, and one ofthe stories that I put together
for that issue was a featurecalled my First Guitar, where I
interviewed a bunch of artistsabout their stories, like we're
doing here, and Sharon sharedher story there.
(21:05):
But I understand you've got anew clip of her talking about
her first guitar here.
Right, go to that next.
Speaker 13 (21:16):
I'm Sharon Isbin and this is the story of my first
guitar.
I was nine years old when ourfamily moved to Italy.
For a year we lived in the townof Varese, which was near
Milano.
My brother, who is seven yearsolder than I, told my parents
that he wanted guitar lessons.
So they researched this.
(21:38):
And then they got very excitedwhen they learned that a guitar
teacher and performer named AldoMinella was commuting twice a
week from Milano to Varese andhe had studied with Segovia and
was concertizing throughoutItaly.
So they brought my brother infor the interview.
But the moment he saw Aldo'slong fingernails on his right
(22:01):
hand and learned that this wasclassical guitar, he said no way
, my fantasy is to be the nextElvis Presley, but my parents
would determine that someone inthe family had to study with
this guy.
This was just too great anopportunity to let go, so, out
of family duty, I volunteeredand thus became a guitarist by
default.
(22:23):
The next step was to get aninstrument, so, being a little
kid, it had to be made for me.
Aldo recommended that we go tovisit the guitar maker, mario
Pabé, who lived off in thecountryside.
I'll never forget climbing arickety old wooden staircase
(22:43):
surrounded by fluffy whitechickens squawking away in his
farm.
We get to the top of the stairsand there is Mario.
He measured my hands, my armsand he said to my parents come
back in a couple of months.
We did, and he presented mewith this beautiful instrument.
(23:04):
I'll never forget being struckby the smell of the wood, that I
could cradle it.
I could feel the vibrationsagainst my body and that this
was something really personal,made just for me.
I couldn't wait to begin myguitar lessons.
I still have this instrumentand every once in a while I take
(23:25):
it out and I remember what abeautiful experience it was that
my life in music began in Italy.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Now that that is like a fairy tale story.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
So in putting together this episode I also dug
into some dusty boxes to findtapes of some of the other
interviews I did Again, we'retalking 1990, so more than 30
years ago and I wanted to sharea couple of clips that were also
from those interviews with somemusicians who are no longer
(23:58):
with us.
So this first one comes fromDoc Watson, and so great to hear
his voice, and I will justapologize for the sound quality
here, but these were recorded onthe phone with a microcassette
recorder with a lot of buzz andnoise, and we've done our best
(24:20):
to kind of clean them up topresent them to you here.
But, as I said, it's great tohear the unmistakable voice of
Doc.
Speaker 14 (24:32):
When I was about 13, one of my brothers borrowed a
guitar and brought it home.
It was a.
Let me see what kind was thatthing?
A harmony guitar arch top.
He borrowed that thing andbrought it home and I was
fooling around with it one daybefore my dad went to work one
morning.
He was drinking his last cup ofcoffee at breakfast and he said
(24:52):
son, if you learn to play atune on that thing by the time I
get home I'll.
I'll go with with you to town.
That's coming tired, and whatyou don't have enough in your
piggy bank, we'll, uh, finish itout I'll finish it out and
we'll find you a guitar.
Well, what he didn't know was Ilearned a chord or two at school
that year from an old boy namedPaul Montgomery, and by the
(25:13):
time he got back I could playthe chords too and sing when the
roses bloom in Dixieland and hesays well, I guess we'll have
to keep my word.
We went to town and we found mea little Stella guitar, a flat
top.
It's a smaller size.
It wasn't a full dreadnought.
It was pretty hard to fret but,lord, I thought I had the
king's treasure and I began totry to learn a few chords and
strum a few songs, learned apinch about the Carter family
(25:39):
style.
You know that style.
They used the thumb lead.
Anyway, that was my firstguitar.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Wow, the king's treasure.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
God, I love that that was so cool.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
I'm glad we have that .
Thanks for preserving thosemicro tapes, Jeff.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
My pack rat instincts come in handy sometimes.
But the next clip here comesfrom Michael Hedges.
I had the privilege of meetingup with him several times and
going up to his home studio upin Mendocino, california, on the
coast a few years before hepassed.
(26:18):
It's now end of this year willbe the 25th anniversary of the
tragic accident that tookMichael Hedges from us, but
certainly a guitarist whochanged everything for a lot of
players out there.
So it's great to revisit thisstory of how he got started.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
I think it was oh, jim must have been been 13 and I
wanted to be either, peter orPaul, or Peter, paul and Mary.
Also, I wanted to be Elvis, butI can't remember which.
It must have been around thetime, right around the time I
Want to Hold your Hand came out.
My parents got me a.
Was it Regen or something likethat?
(27:01):
I remember taking lessons on it, but I had a real tough time
with the F chord.
Speaker 5 (27:09):
Oh, the F?
Chord seems to be the barrierfor everybody.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
But the guitar I really remember as being my
first guitar that I played a loton was a Goya classical guitar,
but I learned how to basicfingerpicking that and it was
pretty easy to play.
I just remember that, Goya, youknow, I looked at a basic
finger-picking app and it was apretty easy play.
I just remember that, Goya, youknow, I had it a long time.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
There's another Goya.
Is it easier to learn on anylon string than it is on a
steel string?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
as your first guitar, I think it's a pretty common
belief that it is mostly becausethe strings don't dig into your
fingers in quite the same wayBig ruts, but I don't know in
reality though, becauseclassical guitars can have
pretty wide necks and can beharder to play in other ways, so
(28:00):
it cuts a lot of different ways.
I think the main thing iswhatever instrument really grabs
you, speaks to you, makes youwant to play, it is the one you
should be playing.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
A lot of people got their first guitar for Christmas
, so you know, Santa isdefinitely a music lover,
apparently, as we can hear inthis next voicemail from Robin
Haynes.
Speaker 16 (28:32):
I went to a professional actor training
program at the University ofWashington.
They told us the first week wewere there that we had to learn
to play a musical instrument.
So I went to a friend and askedhim will you teach me to play
the guitar?
And I asked my parents for aguitar.
They gave me a Kahn studentmodel classical guitar for
Christmas and I used that thatyear.
The following summer I spent 60bucks on a used Yamaha FG-150,
(28:55):
my first steel string guitar,which I still have, and I traded
the Kahn classical for a banjo,a K old Kahn, a K resonator
banjo.
I think that the other guy gotthe better half of that deal.
I sold the banjo when Igraduated from college.
That all happened in 1973.
Anyway, that's my story.
Thanks, bye.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Here's another one from Jim Horton who writes in my
older sister in about 1962,received an inexpensive Sears
guitar for Christmas.
I took it over and played thehell out of it.
I was really into cowboy songs.
We had a luthier in Ann Arbornamed Herb David.
He had a little shop way in athird floor building.
It was a gathering spot forfolkies of the era.
(29:38):
I started hanging around andlistening to the Pickers.
Herb was a really nice guy andI bugged him to find me a good
guitar.
He came up with the Martin 016New Yorker.
It had silk and steel stringsand it was a great folk guitar
and at the time inexpensive.
As a poor student I sold it topay the rent a few years later.
How I wish I had it now.
(30:05):
Here's another reader write-infrom Sandy Shirts.
She says I received my firstguitar, a Regal classical guitar
, for Christmas from my parentsin 1966 when I was 13 years old.
For a year before this my oldersister and I would sit on the
back porch, she on her guitarand me on my ukulele, playing
folk and campfire songs.
I found the transition fromukulele to guitar very easy.
(30:27):
I'm now learning jazz chordsand still have my prized
classical guitar.
It has wonderful tone.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
And here's a story from Walter Shank Jr.
My first guitar was a Christmaspresent at age 12 or 13.
It was a $19.95 SearsSilvertone I think.
It was made out of some type ofcompressed wood, maybe even a
type of heavy compressedcardboard.
In places the sound andplayability was poor, but I took
(30:56):
lessons for a year and learnedhow to read notes and play the
first five books of the Alfred'sBasic Guitar Method.
I paid for the lessons byhelping out at the music store
and mowing their lawn areas.
Unfortunately, my career choiceand subsequent practice demands
kept me away from further studyuntil fairly recently.
Since retirement, I progressedfrom where I left off with a few
(31:20):
much nicer guitars and enjoy itimmensely.
My love for guitar started at avery early age, listening to
Chet Atkins, and neverdiminished.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Here's a story from Barrett Hurwitz who writes in.
Here's a story from Barrett Hur, from a friend who could play,
(31:59):
but Uncle Arthur knew better.
You need lessons and can'tteach yourself.
But I felt confident so Iborrowed my uncle's guitar and
took it home, convincing myfather I could do it.
For about a month I played andpracticed and learned chords and
rudimentary Travis pickinguntil I proved to my father I
could play and deserve my ownguitar.
My dad was generous andencouraging, so we visited our
(32:22):
local Tony Pacheco's guitarstudio where I set my eyes on a
beautiful blonde nylon stringEspana guitar made in Sweden.
Although it was more expensivethan the other guitars Tony had,
my dad bought it for me.
Within six months I had formeda Peter Paul and Mary type group
and we entertained at our highschool senior class banquet.
Although I later switched tosteel string guitars and have a
(32:44):
collection of 20, I still haveand love that nylon string
Espana which I have now ownedfor 53 years.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
So many of these people who wrote in still have
their first guitars.
That's really great.
They were luckier than I washaving my guitar smashed.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
You know, some people got their guitars a gift, Some
people got it for Christmas.
But let's hear how TommyEmanuel got his first guitar.
Speaker 17 (33:12):
My first guitar I got for my fourth birthday, so I
don't remember it well.
I do know that it was a littlethree-quarter size guitar and it
had cowboys painted on it.
I don't remember what brand itwas, but it was pretty cheap,
(33:32):
obviously.
And the first thing I learnedto play on it was the chords to
a Marty Robbins song calledLittle Green Valley, and my
mother used to play it on thesteel guitar and I played the
rhythm, and that's my firstguitar story.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
It makes sense that Tommy Emanuel would have started
at age four, though, because hesounds sort of like he's been
playing the guitar since birth.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
That's just yes, it makes a lot of sense right.
Here's another story about aguitar as a gift.
This is from Mitch Levine whowrites in my first acoustic was
a 69 Guild F312 Brazilian12-string that my then-fiance
bought as an engagement presentin 1970.
She is still my wife he makessure to put that in there and I
(34:24):
still have the guild.
It's been through a couple ofmajor overhauls and repairs but
it's built like a tank.
I can strum a chord, go forcoffee and it's still singing
when I get back.
Sunburst finish.
Just beautiful and well-loved.
Jeff, we have heard so manystories about first guitars.
When you were putting togetherthat first issue and that
(34:45):
feature about my First Guitar,did it have a similar feeling to
how you're feeling?
Speaker 3 (34:53):
now.
In that case I was interviewingall these musicians who went on
to be renowned artists in abunch of different fields and
they grew up in very differenttimes, very different
circumstances, played differentkinds of music, but they all
came forward to do thisprofessionally, to make their
(35:15):
names as musicians.
And I think what strikes melistening to these stories now,
and all the great stories thatpeople shared, is how you know
the people, regardless of whatthey go on to do in their lives,
that this connection that getsforged by being introduced to
(35:38):
the guitar changes your life andstays with you no matter what
you do.
And even if you put it asidedon't really do it much for
decades, you can come back to itand you can be right back in
that space that you were whenyou were 15 years old and just
starting to play.
So it's just a reminder to meabout how you know everybody
(36:02):
starts in that place of thissound that grabs you and this
desire to make some kind of asound.
And, and you know, the peoplewhose names we never hear of as
professional musicians are rightin that same zone as the ones
who grew up to be legends of theinstrument and famous around
(36:25):
the world.
So, um, it's just a uh learning, discovering the instrument,
just just uh.
Changes and enriches your life,I think, wherever, wherever you
take it or don't take it yeahit.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
It's not about, uh, if you have a music career or if
you play a thousand shows or ifyou become a guitar professor
or anything like that.
I think it's just about playingit and what it means to you.
You know, um, that's a greatpoint that the, you know the
players whose names we don't seeon the marquee have just as
(37:03):
passionate stories as theartists that have gone on to
change.
You know, guitar playing in oneway or another and that are, in
a lot of ways, household names.
It's that, that bond of thatfirst moment and a lot of the
ways that we get to share.
That is talking about our firstguitars, whether they're the
(37:24):
high action K or the Goya or awonderful handmade instrument
specifically for you.
Everybody's got that firstguitar story and everybody seems
to remember it.
That's the thing that stood outto me.
Everybody was.
It was either very fresh intheir mind or they sounded like
(37:46):
they were having a good timereminiscing about it.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
For sure, and it's really fun for me to hear those
stories and think back on itmyself.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
We have so many more great guitar stories to share
with you.
Here's part two of my FirstGuitar.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Starting to play is not always easy, of course, so
here are some tales of highaction and other struggles of
beginning guitarists.
So here's a story that comesfrom Jeff Bortley.
Speaker 18 (38:23):
Okay, here's my story about my first guitar.
I was 16 in the summer of 1964,and our mother was driving from
Maryland to Reno, nevada, tosecure a quickie divorce from
our dad.
My younger brother and sisterand I were also in the car
(38:44):
Nearing our destination.
We stopped in Elko, nevada,where I popped into a music
store and there I bought, forthe staggering sum of $50, a
used large-body K six-stringsteel string guitar.
I'd been playing a beat uplittle steel string with
(39:04):
ridiculously high action upuntil then, and that K played
like a dream and sounded likethe New York Philharmonic
Orchestra to me.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
So here's a story from Francesco Biraghi.
He writes it was June or July1970.
A school fellow, paolo, used tobring his 12-string Hofner
guitar to play the Beatles andthe Rolling Stones.
I fell in love immediately withthe sound of that instrument,
so I asked Santa Claus for aguitar, and my mummy, always
(39:36):
sympathetic with her only son,me, found a store with
entry-level guitars at a verygood price.
The result was a purchase of ahorrible EKO guitar with steel
strings.
Starting from that day, ourhome was full of sounds, in
spite of the bloody fingertips.
Around October of the same year,after a summer of compulsive
(39:57):
strumming, my father sat down inmy room and told me.
After a summer of compulsivestrumming, my father sat down in
my room and told me my belovedFrancesco, why don't you take
into consideration to study theguitar with a good teacher?
Some weeks after I applied tothe Scuola Musical di Milano in
the class of the unforgettablemaestro Antonio Barbieri, and my
(40:17):
first guitar, totally uselessfor a serious study, was soon
replaced by a brand new YamahaG100A with nylon strings.
I stop here.
But I must admit that my badguitar EK0 had been enough to
light a flame that still burns52 years later.
And I still own both myterrible EKO and my old Yamaha.
(40:41):
By the way, my old schoolfellow Paolo is a well-reputed
guitar maker, and me I am aprofessor of guitar at the State
Conservatory Giuseppe Verdi ofMilano, italy.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
That was a twist and a turn and a half.
I did not expect him to becomea professor of guitar.
That was great.
That EKO that horrible EKO, ashe points out really did light a
fire.
That stuck with him.
I love that one.
Speaker 19 (41:16):
Hi, my name is Jeff.
My first guitar was a SearsSilvertone that I ordered by
calling Sears and actuallyplacing a mail order for this
guitar, and it was not a verygood guitar.
But I had decided to buy thisguitar in the spring of 69, the
(41:40):
summer of love, after I realizedI could sing.
So, anyway, this guitar wasreally, really in bad shape as
far as the action was concerned,but I had no idea that it was
bad until I got my next guitar,which was a Yamaha FG-150.
It was a Yamaha FG-150.
But my brother pawned thatguitar on an Ibanez SG lookalike
(42:08):
, but he won't admit that he didit.
Anyway, I had saved up moneyfrom working on the ocean as a
deckhand and so it was a guitarthat I really missed.
And I see it in pictures and Igo boy, it looked really good in
pictures but it really soundedterrible.
(42:28):
Anyway, that's my story.
Take care All over.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
We have another story here.
A reader, glenn Watt, writes in.
In 1965, I had just graduatedhigh school and, with part-time
work, bought a new Harmonyhollow body F-hole arch top
guitar for $29 at a neighborhoodmusic store.
It came with black diamondsteel strings that turned my
fingertips black every time Iplayed it.
(42:56):
The action was high, very high,and he spells out V-E-R-Y Very
high.
A few friends and I startedperforming in a folk group, the
Others.
The first song I learned toplay on it was the two-chord Tom
Dooley.
We played Japanese churchpicnics and food bazaars from
(43:17):
Gilroy to Sebastopol.
We called it the ChickenTeriyaki Circuit.
I quit playing and singingentirely while working and took
it up again in retirement.
I volunteer at a SacramentoAsian Senior Center teaching
ukulele and guitar.
In the last 14 years I'vestarted eight uke and guitar
clubs that entertain at churches, nursing homes, hospitals,
(43:39):
museums, health fairs, etc.
I have cancer, though clear now, but it's been a great life
filled with friends, guitars andmusic.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Wow, what a fantastic retirement plan that is.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
Here is reader Jim McNabb, who writes in my dad
played his grandmother's guitaron the radio before becoming a
businessman.
His first guitar purchase withhis own money was a Kalamazoo,
and it became my first when Iwas in high school.
I didn't know how he managed toplay it.
The action was high and thestrings were like cables.
I put plastic strings on it.
(44:12):
My parents told me that if Iplayed it for a year they would
give me a guitar of my choice.
I did, and they gave me a GoyaG10, a good Goya when they were
still made in Sweden.
And here's a story aboutanother Apache lover.
It wasn't just Richard Thompson, acoustic guitar.
(44:42):
Reader Paul Balmer writes in itwas Liverpool, england, 1960.
I was nine and nearing ChristmasI listened to Apache by the
shadows on my dad's recordplayer.
What would you like forChristmas, said dad.
I want whatever is making thatsound, I exclaimed so off.
We went to a local Liverpoolmusic store, hesse's, where the
(45:03):
then-unknown John Lennon earlierbought his first guitar from
the same guy.
The five-pound, half-sizedmonstrosity was strung with
brass strings and was unplayable.
I also received the Francis NDay guitar tutor, which starts
with Tune your guitar to thepiano.
We had no piano, which startswith tune your guitar to the
piano we had no piano and thensuggests you learn all 72
(45:23):
chromatic notes on the sixstrings up to the 12th fret.
Fortunately, a kindly Frenchteacher spotted the unplayable
guitar and sent me to Hesse'sfor some nylon strings and a
clock key to adjust the neckangle.
We restrung the guitar, tunedit up and two years later I was
on TV playing with the schoolband the Francis and Day Tudor,
which I still have.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Remains indecipherable, all these
stories about these terriblefirst guitars just make me
appreciate all the more how goodthe low-end, entry-level
(46:02):
guitars are.
Now they're pretty easy to findones that are well set up, that
have good sound, that you don'thave to battle to play, so
that's just been a hugeadvantage.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
It's hard to overstate the importance the
Beatles had on the world, solet's take a look at how they
inspired a whole generation topick up the guitar.
Here's Bob Capo who writes in.
After seeing the Beatles on TVin 1964, I pestered my parents
enough to take me for lessons Iwas just turning nine years old
and they agreed to rent a Stellaguitar from the store for three
(46:41):
months to see if I would stickwith it.
I did.
Then the deal was made Anotherthree months with the rental and
they would buy a guitar forChristmas.
So I stuck with it.
And for that Christmas in 1964,I received a new Gibson ES-120T
, which I still own, and startedmy collection, which is
currently 72 guitars.
In 1971, on the suggestion thatthe Beatles remove the finish
(47:06):
on several of their guitars, Idid the same.
It really did sound better, butI soon regretted losing that
beautiful sunburst finish.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
Wait a minute.
He said he has 72 guitars right.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
That is a lot of guitars that would keep a person
busy.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
So here is another story that comes from Les Deegan
.
Pop music only had an effect onme when I heard the Beatles and
they came from the same placeas I, liverpool.
I had to learn to play guitar,just had to.
I had a friend who lived nearme who was older and had a job.
I knew he had a couple ofbattered guitars which he'd
(47:41):
bought.
One of these guitars had nostrings on it and I asked him if
I could buy it.
It was an acoustic with nobranding on it, but it didn't
matter, it was a guitar.
He said I could buy it for onepound.
I was 14 years old and helpedmy dad in the butcher shop at
weekends, so I had the one poundto buy the battered guitar.
(48:02):
My Jamaican uncle was anengineer and could do most
anything.
He took the guitar and strippedit down, sprayed it red.
It looked fantastic.
I bought strings and put themon and the action was pretty
good.
I taught myself to play on thatold guitar.
I transferred to bass someyears later but still play
guitar.
I've had a great musical lifethanks to my one-pound red
(48:26):
guitar".
Of course, some people who getintroduced to the guitar at a
young age decide not only thatthey want to play it, but they
want to make one themselves.
So here is a story that comesfrom Dick Boak, a long, storied
(48:50):
career with Martin Guitars.
Speaker 20 (48:53):
Hi, this is Dick Boak from my home in Nazareth,
pennsylvania.
I'm here with my very firstguitar.
I suppose I should be a littleembarrassed to tell you I didn't
buy the guitar.
But I, from my home in Nazareth, pennsylvania, I'm here with my
very first guitar.
I suppose I should be a littleembarrassed to tell you I didn't
buy the guitar, but I made itin my basement.
I really wanted a sitar afterhearing Ravi Shankar and George
Harrison play the sitar early on, I guess around the time of
(49:18):
Rubber Soul.
So I went down to the basementand I got a two by four and some
quarter inch plywood and somemat board, a little bit of
leather for the pick guard andsome brass wire to put the frets
in.
I didn't know where the fretsshould go, so I drilled pairs of
(49:40):
holes a 16th of an inch apartall the way up the neck so that
I could locate the frets.
And then it has nine stringsand it still works more or less
Kind of the way I tune it, uh,uh.
(50:01):
Well, the novelty wears offpretty quickly, but I'm actually
(50:26):
quite proud of it.
I think I was 15 or 16 yearsold at the time and this led to
many other instruments made inmy basement.
In my basement.
It did get me started on a longcareer with musical instruments
and a tremendous job at MartinGuitarist, so I guess these
(50:48):
instruments serve their purpose.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
We've got a reader who also built his own guitar,
ian Johnson.
He writes in growing up in theUK in the late 40s and early 50s
, I loved the new rock and rollmusic and also started listening
to blues, country and folk.
There was no way I would everhave enough money for a real
guitar, so I decided to make one.
I went to the woodwork masterat school and said Please, sir,
(51:15):
can I make a guitar in thewoodwork room after school?
When he stopped laughing hesaid Okay, johnson, so long as
you bring your own materials.
I found a picture of Buddy Hollyholding his Stratocaster at
right angles to the camera so Icould copy the shape.
I won't go into detail aboutall the hurdles I had to cross,
but the electrics were where Ifinally was defeated.
(51:37):
The man in our local radio shophelped me make a low impedance
pickup so I could play itthrough our old radio.
When I left school and got ajob, I finally bought a real
guitar and sold this for a fewpounds to a junk shop.
A week or two later I saw itbeing played on stage at a
nearby youth club.
It takes a lot of drive to, Ithink, persevere in that project
(52:02):
when all you have is a photoand a lot of mistakes to go by.
You know, speaking of saving upfor that first guitar, if you
weren't able to build your ownin the woodshop you could just
save every penny you got.
Here's a clip of a 1960 paperroute guitar.
Speaker 21 (52:22):
It was 1960 on a Sunday morning and I'd stopped
at a house nearby to collect onmy paper route.
Inside I could hear someoneplaying a blues tune on a guitar
.
The lady of the house asked ifI'd like to come in and listen.
The guy was playing a GibsonJ45.
He asked if I'd like to learnto play and offered to teach me
(52:45):
after school.
Excitedly, I peddled home andtold my dad who said with a
smirk of reservation if youlearn to play one song, I'll buy
you a guitar.
Next Sunday I woke up.
My parents sat at the end ofthe bed with the neighbor's
guitar and played and sang avery short, humorous version of.
After the Ball Was Over, thenext day Dad bought me a Harmony
(53:05):
Sober new jumbo guitar.
I played that guitar until 1962, but traded it at $90 for a
moderately worn 1928 Martin 0018from a used guitar shop in
Kansas City, missouri.
Such a deal, and I've played itever since.
If I can make it to age 82,it'll still be playing sweetly
(53:25):
at 100 years old.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
And here's another paper route guitar from Gordon
Scott who writes in my firstguitar was a Guild M20, the
so-called Nick Drake guitar.
I bought it with my paper routemoney in the fall of 1960, I
think it cost $100.
The tax was $4.
The serial number suggests itwas made in 1957.
(53:47):
My guitar teacher wasintroducing me to jazz
progressions, but I wanted toplay folk music.
I had three lessons with JerryGarcia using that guitar, which
is why I learned to cotton pickwith two fingers instead of
three.
The guitar traveled around withme when I was in the Navy.
I'd play Oki from Muskogee andFixin' to Die Rag in the Gulf of
Tonkin.
(54:08):
When I bought my firstDreadnought another guild I lent
the M20 to my brother.
We still have it and it soundslike silver bells.
Here's a voicemail from BruceGowan.
Speaker 22 (54:20):
I actually bought my first guitar at Sears in
Spartanburg, south Carolina, in1968.
With the $27.95, I made PickingCotton on my family's cotton
farm Probably the last personyou'll ever hear say that.
I bought the guitar a cowboymodel that I still have 50 years
(54:43):
later 50-plus years later and aguitar songbook.
It had the pictures of thechords and how to make them and
how to strum.
It wasn't a mail bay, it wassomebody else's and it was long
lost and fell apart.
But the first song I learnedwas Go Tell Aunt Rhody, and then
Down in the Valley was C, g andD the first three chords.
(55:07):
So I still had the guitar,learned to play, bought a better
one in high school, had a briefstint as a duet performer which
helped me get a scholarship tocollege, so that Sears guitar
paid for itself many times overit's amazing what a big role
that Sears played in people'sstories here, including mine.
Speaker 3 (55:28):
My guitar was a Sears guitar.
Here's another reader storythat comes from Don Kellett.
I was nine years old and myparents had been asking me about
music lessons.
My mom, my older sister, playedpiano.
I declined.
I really wanted to play guitar.
Then they wanted me to sign upfor accordion lessons.
At that point I was financiallysomewhat independent, had a
(55:52):
paper route and said I would buymy own guitar and pay for my
lessons.
Parents were not thrilled thiswas the Elvis era but conceded
and we went to a local musicshop in Port Credit, ontario,
where I purchased a baby Stella,the three-quarter size version,
complete with sunburst finish,started taking lessons and I
(56:15):
have never stopped playingguitar.
Not sure what happened to theStella A couple of years later
it was traded in for a Hoffnerelectric guitar and amp.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Here's a voicemail from Charles Joseph.
Speaker 23 (56:28):
We didn't have a lot of money growing up.
My mom, my dad, couldn't giveme money to buy the guitar I
wanted.
So I went to my Aunt Dolly, andshe agreed to buy it, but I had
to earn enough money for halfthe guitar.
So I said okay.
So I had to clean out the shed,had to cut grass, had to do
(56:49):
some other chores, help herclean the house, and after a few
days I earned enough money forhalf of the guitar.
And my aunt kept her promise,promise and she bought the
guitar.
I used my money and she usedher money.
It was a.
My first guitar was a K with theF holes and this guy, rex, he
(57:15):
could play.
So he showed me the song PeterGunn Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum,
bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.
So I was playing that over andover again.
I was driving my mother nutswith it and eventually I learned
some other songs from someother guys that played the
(57:37):
guitar.
And then I got you know music,books and stuff like that and
learned the songs I wanted tolearn.
That's my first guitar, okay, kwith the F holes.
All right, thank you.
Speaker 1 (57:51):
Here's another story from Randy Becker about using
his own money to buy his firstguitar.
He writes in I came home fromschool one day in 1969.
Mom was watching TV and I sawChet Atkins playing Yankee,
doodle and Dixie at the sametime on one guitar.
I thought to myself I need tolearn how to do that.
(58:18):
I was 12 years old.
I took a hammer to my piggybank, gathered my entire life
savings and $14 to the baseexchange and bought a
three-quarter size steel string,mile-high action laminated
guitar and a Mel Bay chord book.
When I got home I blew past thepart about tuning and started
to learn how to finger chords.
In that first week I wrote myfirst song, a not-too-subtle
ripoff of Paul Revere's IndianNation.
(58:39):
My lack of tuning wasn't aproblem for me, but my family
was not impressed.
Finally, taking theircomplaints seriously, I went
back to the page about tuningand suddenly everything sounded
better.
It's been a long but wonderful51-year journey with many twists
and turns, but I'm forevergrateful to my mom for having
the TV on that afternoon.
Speaker 3 (59:00):
Lots of folks have gotten their first guitars in
the mail, ordering them fromcatalogs, and here's a story
about that from Marv Kruger.
He writes my first guitar is aSears and Roebuck mail-order
guitar my dad bought sometimearound 1940.
In 1957, dad, grandpa and a mannamed Elmer started building us
(59:23):
a new house.
The old house was raised up ontimbers and moved to a yard
space and used for a feed shed.
One day in 1963, I noticed adoor in the peak of the feed
shed, got a ladder and startedexploring with my 10-year-old
imagination running wild ofhidden Jesse James loot that
must be there.
(59:44):
Instead I found this Sears andRoebuck archtop guitar and a
Smiley Burnett songbook.
I drug this guitar down theladder and it became mine.
I still play it today.
Speaker 1 (59:56):
Reader, gene Zerler.
I'm sorry, gene, if Ipronounced your name wrong.
Gene Zerler writes in.
In 1959, I was eight years oldand we lived in Lexington,
massachusetts, near Boston,where the folk music scene was
happening.
The songs of Woody Guthrie andrecordings by Pete Seeger made a
strong impression on me and Iasked my mother if I could take
(01:00:16):
guitar lessons.
She found a guitar teachernamed Peter Lentz who was a folk
singer in the Bostoncoffeehouses.
I don't remember much about myvery first guitar, but I suspect
that it was ordered from theSears catalog.
It didn't have much tone and itwas difficult to play.
I took my first lessons on thatguitar and had some success in
spite of the limitations.
(01:00:37):
As my playing improved, petersuggested to my parents that I
needed a better instrument.
In 1960, I was given a newMartin D-18.
I'm not sure why that make andmodel was selected for me, but I
suspect it was Peter's choice.
It was perfect for an adultfolk singer in Boston, but it
was too large for anine-year-old boy and I recall
(01:00:58):
that I played with a capo on thethird to the fifth fret until
my arm was long enough to reachdown to the end of the neck.
So my first guitar was nothingspecial, but my second guitar
was the one I played that D-18through high school and got
involved with playing in rockbands, switched to electric
guitar for a while, then I wentoff to college and medical
(01:01:19):
school and did not play guitarfor a number of years.
In the 1980s my dad was gettingready to move out of our old
house and he called to ask whathe should do with my old guitars
.
I was reunited with my D-18, soI started playing again and
going to guitar and songwritingworkshops.
I have acquired a number ofother guitars and instruments
over the years, but the D-18still serves as the foundation
(01:01:41):
of my playing style and theheart of my collection.
The serial number indicates itwas made sometime in 1959.
The serial number indicates itwas made sometime in 1959.
It has the classic D18 sprucetop, mahogany back and sides,
mahogany neck and ebonyfingerboard with closed deluxe
metal tuners.
It does not have an adjustabletruss rod and required a re-fret
and neck reset in the 1990s.
(01:02:03):
Otherwise it's unchanged fromthe day it left the Martin
factory.
Here's another story about ahigh-action guitar.
Speaker 12 (01:02:10):
I grew up in Lakeland, florida.
I was about 10 years old, Ithink, and taking some guitar
lessons from a local teacher.
I went to a music store with mydad.
They had this guitar hanging onthe wall that had a pickup in
it, an acoustic guitar with apickup in it, which really
impressed me.
The name brand on the guitarthere was a logo that just said
(01:02:35):
Fame, and the action was so highon the thing I could barely
press the strings down, but ithad a pickup and I was impressed
and that was my first guitarthat my dad paid, I think, $35
for.
And then I bought a littleGibson amp from one of my
(01:02:56):
brother's friends about sixmonths later for $20.
He'd torn off the grill and hehad a little piece of like zebra
skin fabric you know zebraprint fabric hanging over the
front of the speaker and it wasall blown out and worn out and
neither thing was good enoughfor me to learn anything.
(01:03:18):
The action was so high that Iactually took the bridge out of
the saddle to get the stringsjust a little lower.
I didn't know anything aboutadjusting the neck, I don't even
know if it had a truss rod.
It had two screws on the bridge.
That did absolutely nothing,but I did love that guitar for
(01:03:38):
several years and I ended up, Ithink that's the only guitar
I've ever sold to another kid.
in junior high I sold the ampand the guitar for 25 bucks.
Anyway, that's the story of myfirst guitar.
Have a nice day.
Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
So some of us have had unorthodox let's say
introductions to the guitar.
Here's a great story aboutsomeone who started playing
guitar to quit smoking.
Speaker 10 (01:04:04):
Hi, I'm 32 years old .
I was wanting to quit smokingand I'd always wanted to learn
how to play guitar.
A new coworker of mine playedand offered to teach me, and he
was also a part-time bull rider.
And he broke his arm and so hebrought his guitar and a guitar
book Alfred's Basic GuitarMethod to work one morning and
(01:04:27):
said here I can't play, whydon't you teach yourself?
So I quit smoking, used hisguitar and got hooked.
That Christmas a local guitarstore had a spot in the mall and
they were having agoing-out-of-business sale and
had their guitars half off.
So I went in, looked around,found this beautiful little
(01:04:48):
Alvarez six string acoustic andbought it, and that was my first
guitar.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
And if quitting smoking wasn't an unusual enough
way to start playing guitar,here's one that features ping
pong and a gambling debt, butmaybe not in the way you think
Richard Weissman writes in.
When I was 17 years old, I wasa student at Goddard College in
Plainfield, vermont.
I was also a semi-professionaltable tennis player, ranked
(01:05:15):
number seven in the country forboys under 18.
The way that table tennisworked the only way you could
make money playing was to gamble.
I regularly played one studentfrom Baltimore and he worked up
a huge paper debt to me.
It became obvious that thiscouldn't continue, so one day he
suggested that we go to hisroom and I find something in
there to satisfy the debt.
(01:05:37):
I found a Harmony MontereyF-hole guitar.
The action was very high, butthe idea of getting a free
guitar was appealing.
I played that guitar for abouttwo years, developing quite a
set of calluses.
In my junior year I went toschool in New York and Jerry
Silverman, my guitar teacher atthe time, suggested I might want
to get something a bit moreplayable if I ever expected to
(01:05:58):
improve my skills.
I bought a Favilla guitar anddiscarded the harmony.
I don't remember what I didwith it, but I was happy to see
it go.
This was the only time that mytable tennis and music careers
coincided.
Well, here's a clip from AndyMarino, who found his guitar in
the most unlikely of places.
Speaker 8 (01:06:19):
My first guitar was.
I found it in the garbage canand one of my neighbor's garbage
cans that had a hole in theback.
It was a Stella, a guitarharmony Stella I think it was
and it had three strings on it.
And I lived pretty close toJamaica Bay in Brooklyn so I
(01:06:40):
used to go fishing, so I put onsome fishing line.
The thin, thinnest line I hadwas for the E string and then I
worked my way down how toreplace the G string and also
the A string with thicker lineand that's what I started
playing guitar on back in 1964and thanks so much.
(01:07:06):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
Bye-bye.
If anybody remembers the bluechip stamps, this one's for you.
Speaker 24 (01:07:13):
When I was a teenager years ago, there was a
thing called blue chip stampsand if you bought things like at
the gas station and the market,they would give you so many
blue chip stamps to put in abook.
They would give you so manyblue chip stamps to put in a
(01:07:36):
book and after you had enoughbooks you could exchange it for
different things.
My mom got me and my brother ablue chip stamp guitar, which
I'm sure was a piece of junk,but I rarely played it.
My brother played it mostly,and anyway, that's my story.
Fortunately, I can affordbetter guitars today.
Thank you very much, Bye-bye.
Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
Here's a story about someone who wants to pass down
his first guitar, and it justgot me really thinking about how
the joy that the guitars andthe music that they make bring
to us can really last a lotlonger than we might initially
think that they can.
Speaker 15 (01:08:18):
This is Shelton Spicer.
I'm just calling about thearticle on your first guitar.
I got my first guitar myparents sacrificed a lot to buy
it back in November of 1960, aGibson Spanish guitar model LGO
R6593-17.
Case and all was $70.74.
(01:08:44):
And I still own it today andI'm going to give it to my
oldest son to put in a glasscase when I pass away.
And the first thing I everplayed on it was Wildwood Blower
.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
Jeff, we have heard so many stories about first
guitars.
When you were putting togetherthat first issue and that
feature about my first guitar,did it have a similar feeling to
how you're feeling now?
Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
In that case, I was interviewing all these musicians
who went on to be renownedartists in a bunch of different
fields and they grew up in verydifferent times, very different
circumstances, played differentkinds of music, but they all
came forward to do thisprofessionally, to make their
names as musicians.
(01:09:43):
I think what strikes melistening to these stories now,
and all the great stories thatpeople shared, is how the people
, regardless of what they go onto do in their lives, um, that
this connection that gets forgedby being introduced to the
guitar, um, changes your lifeand stays with you no matter
(01:10:04):
what you do.
And even if you put it asidedon't really do it much for
decades, you can come back to itand you can read right back in
that space that you were whenyou were 15 years old and just
starting to play.
So it's just a reminder to meabout how everybody starts in
that place, of this sound thatgrabs you and this desire to
(01:10:28):
make some kind of a sound.
And and, uh, you know the, thepeople whose names we never hear
of as professional musicians,are right in that same zone as
the, the ones who grew up to belegends of the instrument and
famous around the world.
So, um, it's just a uh uh.
Learning, discovering theinstrument just changes and
(01:10:54):
enriches your.
Speaker 1 (01:10:55):
That, I think it's just about playing it and what
it means to you.
You know that's a great point,that the you know the players
(01:11:18):
whose names we don't see on themarquee have just as passionate
stories as the artists that havegone on to change.
You know guitar playing in oneway or another and that are, in
a lot of ways, household names.
It's that bond of that firstmoment and a lot of the ways
(01:11:38):
that we get to share.
That is talking about our firstguitars, whether they're the
high action K or the Goya or awonderful handmade instrument
specifically for you.
Everybody's got that firstguitar story and everybody seems
to remember it.
That's the thing that stood outto me.
(01:12:00):
Everybody was.
Speaker 3 (01:12:01):
it was either very fresh in their mind or they
sounded like they were having agood time reminiscing about it,
for sure they sounded like theywere having a good time
reminiscing about it For sure,and it's really fun for me to
hear those stories and thinkback on it myself.
Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
The Acoustic Guitar Podcast is brought to you by the
team at Acoustic GuitarMagazine.
I'm your host, nick Grizzle,joined for this episode by
Jeffrey Pepper Rogers.
Our theme song was composed byAdam Perlmutter and performed
for this episode by JeffreyPepper Rogers.
Our theme song was composed byAdam Perlmutter and performed
for this episode by JeffreyPepper Rogers.
The Acoustic Guitar Podcast isdirected and edited by Joey
Lusterman.
Tanya Gonzalez is our producer.
(01:12:40):
Executive producers for theAcoustic Guitar Podcast are
Lizzie Lusterman and StephanieCampos-Dalbray.
Thank you to everyone who sentrecorded messages, left
voicemails and wrote in to sharethe stories of their first
guitar for this episode.
We really appreciate it.
Eric Bibb, bruce Coburn,courtney Hartman, richard
(01:13:00):
Thompson, bajie Asad, sharonIsbin, tommy Emanuel, dick Boak
and the dozens of readers andfans of Acoustic Guitar Magazine
.
Dick Boak and the dozens ofreaders and fans of Acoustic
Guitar magazine.
Join us again next month forthe Acoustic Guitar podcast
where we chat with Tommy Emanuelin a conversation you
definitely don't want to miss.
Thank you so much for yoursupport.
Welcome to the Acoustic Guitar Podcast.
I'm Nick Grizzle.
We started this podcast twoyears ago and the show has grown
a lot in that time, thanks tolisteners like you.
We're marking this milestone bysharing our first ever episode
again.
If you started listening to theAcoustic Guitar Podcast
recently, you may not have goneback far enough in our catalog
to have heard this one yet, butif you've been with us since the
(00:22):
beginning, there's stillsomething new for you here.
Heard this one yet, but ifyou've been with us since the
beginning, there's stillsomething new for you here.
This is my first guitar in itsentirety part one as published
in 2022, plus part two, which upuntil now, has only been
available to our Patreonsupporters.
We hope you enjoy this episodeand we hope you'll consider
joining us on Patreon to access20 bonus podcast episodes, plus
(00:43):
exclusive lessons, liveworkshops and much more.
You'll find it all atpatreoncom slash acoustic guitar
plus.
Welcome to the first episode ofthe Acoustic Guitar Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
We are so excited to explore the world of acoustic
guitars with you.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I'm Nick Grizzle and I'm Jeffrey Pepper Rogers.
And in this first episode we'regoing to be sharing stories of
your first guitars.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Everyone starts their journey differently, but we all
shared a desire to get ourhands on a guitar and start
figuring out how to make musicwith it.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
So we reached out to some of our favorite guitarists,
as well as readers of AcousticGuitar Magazine and
AcousticGuitarcom, to ask themto share their stories with us.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
This first one comes from Eric Bibb, great roots and
blues guitarist and singer.
Hi folks, this is Eric Bibb.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
The first guitar that I remember playing, that I
actually got my little fingersaround, was my dad's
parlor-sized Galeano guitar.
Galeano guitars were madeprobably by the Oscar Schmidt
factory in New Jersey.
We lived in New York, okay, aparlor-sized Oscar Schmidt
factory in New Jersey.
We lived in New York.
Okay, a parlor-sized, beautifulGaleano, you know parlor-sized
(02:33):
acoustic guitar.
Okay, that was not myinstrument.
When I was about seven, let'ssay three years later, my
parents bought me my firstguitar.
It was a cheap plywood guitar.
The action was too high for mytender fingers and I really
struggled with it.
I had a teacher I think hisname was Vic, who taught me that
tune Yellow Bird.
The Mills Brothers have a greatversion.
(02:54):
Anyway, that really wasn't mything.
I wanted to actually accompanymyself singing like Odetta, like
Pete Seeger, like Josh White,you know, like those folks.
Okay.
So the next thing that happenedwas, by the way, I don't have
that Galeano guitar and I don'thave that cheapo plywood guitar.
My next big guitar moment wasMyron Weiss, a great guitar
(03:16):
teacher down in Grange Village,who I studied classical guitar
with.
So we learned stuff by Soar andyou know that kind of stuff,
carcassi, great stuff.
Anyway, I do remember borrowingfrom my dad's accompanist,
stuart Scharf, a great guitarista nylon string Gibson.
That really became my favoritego-to guitar for a while.
(03:39):
And then my friend Tim Ut lentme his Guild Guild 12 string and
that was like the bomb.
Gotta go, folks, but love it,keep playing.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Ciao, great story I had a chance to open for Eric
Bibb, once a fantastic performer, and from there we are going to
go to Bruce Coburn, who I hadthe pleasure of interviewing
numerous times over the yearsand I believe, wrote about in
the very first issue of AcousticGuitar in 1990, right up
(04:15):
through a recent lessoninterview that we did.
That is included in this brandnew book called Play Guitar Like
the Great Singer Songwriters.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
My first guitar was one I found in my grandmother's
attic closet.
We happened to be staying therewhen I was 14 years old,
waiting for the house my fatherwas having built to be finished,
and so I had this room up inthe attic and I went rooting
through the closet one day and Ihad this room up in the attic.
And I went rooting through thecloset one day and I found this
beat-up cardboard guitar caseand inside was an equally
(04:50):
beat-up guitar, small, dark,scratched up thing and it had a
raised nut on it for playingHawaiian style, which I took off
and I could then at least makethe strings hit the fingerboard,
but I had no idea what to dowith it.
I'd taken lessons on trumpetand clarinet before that, but
(05:12):
knew nothing about guitar.
But I started pounding away onit, trying to play rock and roll
riffs, and I painted gold starson the top of it and posed in
front of the mirror with it, youknow.
And my parents got nervous andsaid OK, we can give you, we'll
support you, we'll get youguitar lessons.
(05:33):
You have to promise to take thelessons and learn to play
properly, quote-unquote.
And you have to also promisenot to grow sideburns and get a
leather jacket.
This is 1959, and everyone wasworried about the association
between rock and roll and teengangs and stuff like that, so
they didn't want me going inthat direction.
The first lesson I took, theteacher said you can't learn on
(05:57):
that guitar, it's just it's too.
It's not good.
So I got a K arch top and I hadthat for quite a long time.
I took lessons on that and kindof wish I still had it actually
the first tune I learned toplay for myself off the radio.
I was, you know, the guitar.
(06:17):
The teacher was teaching methings to play, but I was very
proud of myself for being ableto figure out Walk, don't Run
off the radio.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
So we have one more artist story to share here.
This one's from CourtneyHartman, who's a great young
flat picker and indie folksongwriter, and here is her
story.
Speaker 7 (06:43):
This is Courtney Hartman and my first guitar was
so adorable.
I was about 10 or 11 and myparents made it a point to just
have a lot of instruments aroundthe house.
I was taking violin lessons butguitar was like this kind of
free reign instrument.
And so there was a littleMontana guitar that my parents
(07:06):
bought in downtown Loveland at amusic store and it was kind of
golden, red and had nylonstrings and was a perfect little
size and the amazing thing isthat that guitar all these years
later still plays in tune andit sounds amazing and it was so
easy to play.
I remember just loving how easyit was for my fingers to press
(07:30):
down the strings and have veryfond memories of that guitar.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
And we actually had a first guitar feature story in
the first issue of AcousticGuitar Magazine.
Jeff, you were the foundingeditor of Acoustic Guitar, so
you actually worked on thatfeature.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I did, and that was one of the things we did to kick
off the magazine, and so it'sgreat to come back and kick off
the podcast with it.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yeah, and I mean we'll get more on that later.
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself.
How long were you with themagazine and what are you doing
nowadays?
Speaker 3 (08:04):
yeah, thanks.
So, um, I was the foundingeditor when it was a tiny little
company putting out acousticguitar and strings magazine.
I was the editor for the first10 years and then switched over
to uh to be a contributingeditor, and I'm called editor at
large these days and stilldoing lots of writing for the
(08:25):
magazine.
But I'm a guitar player,songwriter lifelong since I was
a teenager.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I'm a drummer but I do have a guitar.
It's a Washburn from about 99,2000, I think I remember I
wanted it because I saw somebodyplaying this acoustic guitar
plugged into an amp withdistortion and I thought that
was the coolest sound.
Now I hear that I'm like thatis not the coolest sound, but I
(09:00):
wouldn't shut up about it.
So my dad, for Christmas,months later, got me this
acoustic electric Washburn.
That's my first guitar story,getting inspired with a sound
that I would never do now, butstill having the guitar around
to play as a constant musicalcompanion.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
I think you ought to get that thing, plug it in and
crank up the distortion and tryit again.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
What about you?
What was your first guitar?
Speaker 3 (09:28):
I had a Sears guitar that my parents gave me when I
was 12.
That kind of got me started.
My older brother, three yearsolder, had started when he was
around the same age, and so thatwas actually one of the
greatest things about learningis that we just started doing
music together by the time I was14 or 15, we were performing
(09:51):
and everything.
But the Sears guitar didn'tlast too long.
I got a Yamaha that I sort ofconsider my Yamaha Dreadnought,
that I consider sort of my realfirst guitar, consider my Yamaha
Dreadnought, that I considersort of my real first guitar.
But I just got to share the sadthing that happened to my very
first the Sears guitar, which isI was in high school and I got
(10:14):
this Yamaha and so I was goingto figure it.
I would just give the Searsguitar to somebody else who
would want it.
And a friend of mine said ohyeah, I would love to have that.
Can I have it?
And so I gave him the guitar,figuring he really wants to
learn guitar.
I'm doing this nice thing formy friend.
And about 10 minutes later hecame back with just the neck of
(10:36):
it and he had just gone andsmashed my guitar.
No, he was into the who orsomething.
Maybe he'd just seen.
Animal House?
Yeah, I don't know.
So that was a little sad, I gotto say it was not really what I
was thinking was going to bethe fate of my first guitar, but
anyway it got me going.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
With our first guitar stories out of the way, let's
dive into our first call-in.
Here is Richard Thompson.
Jeff, what do you know aboutRichard Thompson?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Well, he's the incredible triple threat as an
amazing songwriter and aguitarist and performer and
everything.
He kind of blows the fuses ofguitarists wherever he goes.
He's so skilled, so good and sowitty and all that.
(11:27):
So I've loved interviewing hima couple times over the years
and he's a very thoughtful guy.
So I'm excited to hear what hehad to say about his first
guitar.
Speaker 6 (11:41):
Well, I'll give you the whole story.
So my father was in the policepolice and he was working in the
West End of London where allthe guitar shops were, and one
of his old army buddies fromWorld War II ran a guitar shop
and they were throwing out thischeap Spanish guitar because the
cider split open.
And my father said well, youknow, I trained as a joiner, you
(12:03):
know as a house carpenter.
You know I'll take it and I'llfix it up, because you know he
used to play the guitar beforethe war and he was a big Django
Reinhardt fan and everything.
So he hadn't had a guitar foryears.
So he brings it home and heglues it up and by that time I'm
(12:24):
a big guitar fan.
You know, everybody in rock androll was posing, if not playing
a guitar, and my sister also haddesigns on it as well.
My father, of course, haddesigns on it, but I kind of
grabbed it and possessed it andit was really, you know, it was
a cheap nylon-strung guitar.
It probably cost at retail, youknow, at at the time about £5,
(12:47):
£10.
And it did me for a few months.
But then I started takingclassical guitar lessons and my
teacher said you know this isreally holding you back.
You need to convince yourparents to get you something
better.
So after about six months Iditched it and I got a better
nylon-striped guitar and thatdid me for a couple of years and
(13:13):
then I got an electric guitarand then rock and roll possessed
me and the rest is history.
So 1960, the British band calledthe Shadows, a very famous
instrumental band, had a numberone hit with Apache.
So we were all trying to playApache and I got the chords down
for Apache that I could playthe melody down.
(13:34):
My sister was a big Buddy Hollyfan, so trying to play Piggy
Sue was another big step and avery useful step, because it's
basically A, d, a, e.
If you could get fluent onthose three chords, you're
making big progress.
So that was all good stuff forme.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
I love those songs that help people get started,
some things with just a fewnotes or a couple of chords and
you're off to the races.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Well, we also had some readers write in, not just
call in, so we're going to reada few throughout this episode,
and apologies if we mispronounceanybody's names.
This one is from Lee Spear, whoshares her story, and this kind
of reminds me of the power ofmusic.
She says my first guitarbelonged to one of my older
(14:34):
brothers.
He had been in a motorcycleaccident and wasn't wearing a
helmet Fortunately no brokenbones but he was pretty beat up
during the skid and had almostlost one of his ears.
My parents were telling us hisfight to keep his ear wasn't
going well and I was just 16years old at the time.
So his guitar was at our houseand I decided I would try to
(14:55):
learn to play something to cheerhim up, since he couldn't have
it in his hospital room.
I learned the sound of silencefrom Simon and Garfunkel.
I wanted it to sound like theirversion, so I plucked the
strings and didn't strum.
He was able to come home a weeklater, so I played it for him
and he was quiet at the end.
Was that okay?
I asked how long have you beenplaying?
(15:17):
He asked Just this past week.
I'm sorry if it wasn't verygood.
He laughed.
It was better than I ever was.
You keep the guitar.
You can never sell it.
Give it back to me if you don'twant to play it anymore.
Okay, that was the beginning ofmy life, with a beautiful
companion.
To manage the ups and downsthat we're all dealt, he gave me
his G10 Goya, probably made inthe 50s.
(15:40):
I'm now 63 and I still have theguitar.
It has had a little work doneon it and I play it fairly often
.
What a beautiful sound.
It always cheers my soul when Iplay it, heck, even when I
think about it.
What a sweet story, gosh.
How do you not smile afterhearing something like that?
Right, we now have a clip fromBajie Asad, a great classical
(16:04):
guitarist.
Does so many amazing innovativethings with guitar.
I've been fortunate to see herlive and wow, what a fantastic
musician.
Speaker 9 (16:14):
What about my first guitar?
So I am the sister of SajanUdayi Assad.
So when I was born, these twounbelievable musicians were
already playing the guitar, soit always had a guitar around
the house.
But if you asked me as a child,what do you want to be when you
(16:34):
grow up, I would always answerI want to be a dancer, I want to
be different, okay.
But when I was 14 years old, myfather invited me to play
chorinho with him, somethingthat he had done with my
brothers many years before.
(16:54):
And I said yes because I hadthis dream to become closer to
daddy, and it was through music.
But I had no guitar.
So, odair, let me use one ofhis guitars.
It was a Paul Fisher fromEngland then.
It had a beautiful sound, evenif back then I didn't know what
(17:19):
a beautiful sound would be.
But, believe it or not, it hasbeen the guitar I recorded all
my albums.
So this guitar is my lucky one,is still here with me and I'm
telling you the sound of it isunbelievable and very easy to
(17:40):
play, and interesting to knowalso that my brothers say that
since this guitar became mine,the sound has changed.
Nowadays it is more feminine.
We can only wonder why, but Ithink it's nature.
So this is it my impressionsabout my first guitar.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Hearing her voice there just brought back a great
memory of her coming to theacoustic guitar office around
probably mid-90s and playing forus in our conference room and
leaving us all completelyspeechless.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Some people got their guitar later in life, but, as
we know, as we all know, you arenever too old to start learning
guitar, as Bob Barry says inthis next clip.
Speaker 11 (18:36):
Rather than being a little kid, a young kid, I'm a
senior.
I was 70 years old, over 70,when I first ran across my
guitar and it happened to be mywife's brother who had passed
away, and we had everything instorage and we opened it up one
day to go through it and, lo andbehold, there was a classical
(19:00):
guitar there and I thought youknow, it's interesting.
And I thought, well, I thinkI'll mess around a little bit.
And so I went and I had itrestrung, had it taken care of,
and I decided I was going totake lessons.
And I started taking lessonsand got a little better.
I'm still not very good, but itwas all because of this guitar
(19:24):
in storage that was in mintcondition.
It just hadn't been opened.
We hadn't opened the case.
It was there and we didn't evenknow what was inside.
And there it was.
So that's my story and that'show I got started.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
I love hearing that story.
Somebody just asked me theother day I always wanted to
play, but I feel like I'm tooold.
You know is it?
Am I too old to start playing?
And I think I'll point thatperson to Bob's message here.
Good reminder that you canalways start.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yeah, it just takes that one spark of inspiration
and who knows when it's going tocome.
Never too late to start playingany instrument, especially
guitar.
In this section we're going totalk a little bit about your
experience putting together thatfirst issue of Acoustic Guitar
Magazine, jeff.
As I recall seeing thumbingthrough the archives, sharon
(20:22):
Isbin was on the cover.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Thumbing through the archives, sharon Isbin was on
the cover.
That's right.
Yeah, sharon was, and she was acolumnist in the early years of
the magazine.
It was great to work with her,and, yeah, so this was middle of
1990 when the first issue cameout and we had a whole bunch of
(20:44):
guitarists an amazing number ofguitarists who signed up to get
our premiere issue for thismagazine.
We wanted to start, and one ofthe stories that I put together
for that issue was a featurecalled my First Guitar, where I
interviewed a bunch of artistsabout their stories, like we're
doing here, and Sharon sharedher story there.
(21:05):
But I understand you've got anew clip of her talking about
her first guitar here.
Right, go to that next.
Speaker 13 (21:16):
I'm Sharon Isbin and this is the story of my first
guitar.
I was nine years old when ourfamily moved to Italy.
For a year we lived in the townof Varese, which was near
Milano.
My brother, who is seven yearsolder than I, told my parents
that he wanted guitar lessons.
So they researched this.
(21:38):
And then they got very excitedwhen they learned that a guitar
teacher and performer named AldoMinella was commuting twice a
week from Milano to Varese andhe had studied with Segovia and
was concertizing throughoutItaly.
So they brought my brother infor the interview.
But the moment he saw Aldo'slong fingernails on his right
(22:01):
hand and learned that this wasclassical guitar, he said no way
, my fantasy is to be the nextElvis Presley, but my parents
would determine that someone inthe family had to study with
this guy.
This was just too great anopportunity to let go, so, out
of family duty, I volunteeredand thus became a guitarist by
default.
(22:23):
The next step was to get aninstrument, so, being a little
kid, it had to be made for me.
Aldo recommended that we go tovisit the guitar maker, mario
Pabé, who lived off in thecountryside.
I'll never forget climbing arickety old wooden staircase
(22:43):
surrounded by fluffy whitechickens squawking away in his
farm.
We get to the top of the stairsand there is Mario.
He measured my hands, my armsand he said to my parents come
back in a couple of months.
We did, and he presented mewith this beautiful instrument.
(23:04):
I'll never forget being struckby the smell of the wood, that I
could cradle it.
I could feel the vibrationsagainst my body and that this
was something really personal,made just for me.
I couldn't wait to begin myguitar lessons.
I still have this instrumentand every once in a while I take
(23:25):
it out and I remember what abeautiful experience it was that
my life in music began in Italy.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Now that that is like a fairy tale story.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
So in putting together this episode I also dug
into some dusty boxes to findtapes of some of the other
interviews I did Again, we'retalking 1990, so more than 30
years ago and I wanted to sharea couple of clips that were also
from those interviews with somemusicians who are no longer
(23:58):
with us.
So this first one comes fromDoc Watson, and so great to hear
his voice, and I will justapologize for the sound quality
here, but these were recorded onthe phone with a microcassette
recorder with a lot of buzz andnoise, and we've done our best
(24:20):
to kind of clean them up topresent them to you here.
But, as I said, it's great tohear the unmistakable voice of
Doc.
Speaker 14 (24:32):
When I was about 13, one of my brothers borrowed a
guitar and brought it home.
It was a.
Let me see what kind was thatthing?
A harmony guitar arch top.
He borrowed that thing andbrought it home and I was
fooling around with it one daybefore my dad went to work one
morning.
He was drinking his last cup ofcoffee at breakfast and he said
(24:52):
son, if you learn to play atune on that thing by the time I
get home I'll.
I'll go with with you to town.
That's coming tired, and whatyou don't have enough in your
piggy bank, we'll, uh, finish itout I'll finish it out and
we'll find you a guitar.
Well, what he didn't know was Ilearned a chord or two at school
that year from an old boy namedPaul Montgomery, and by the
(25:13):
time he got back I could playthe chords too and sing when the
roses bloom in Dixieland and hesays well, I guess we'll have
to keep my word.
We went to town and we found mea little Stella guitar, a flat
top.
It's a smaller size.
It wasn't a full dreadnought.
It was pretty hard to fret but,lord, I thought I had the
king's treasure and I began totry to learn a few chords and
strum a few songs, learned apinch about the Carter family
(25:39):
style.
You know that style.
They used the thumb lead.
Anyway, that was my firstguitar.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Wow, the king's treasure.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
God, I love that that was so cool.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
I'm glad we have that .
Thanks for preserving thosemicro tapes, Jeff.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
My pack rat instincts come in handy sometimes.
But the next clip here comesfrom Michael Hedges.
I had the privilege of meetingup with him several times and
going up to his home studio upin Mendocino, california, on the
coast a few years before hepassed.
(26:18):
It's now end of this year willbe the 25th anniversary of the
tragic accident that tookMichael Hedges from us, but
certainly a guitarist whochanged everything for a lot of
players out there.
So it's great to revisit thisstory of how he got started.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
I think it was oh, jim must have been been 13 and I
wanted to be either, peter orPaul, or Peter, paul and Mary.
Also, I wanted to be Elvis, butI can't remember which.
It must have been around thetime, right around the time I
Want to Hold your Hand came out.
My parents got me a.
Was it Regen or something likethat?
(27:01):
I remember taking lessons on it, but I had a real tough time
with the F chord.
Speaker 5 (27:09):
Oh, the F?
Chord seems to be the barrierfor everybody.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
But the guitar I really remember as being my
first guitar that I played a loton was a Goya classical guitar,
but I learned how to basicfingerpicking that and it was
pretty easy to play.
I just remember that, Goya, youknow, I looked at a basic
finger-picking app and it was apretty easy play.
I just remember that, Goya, youknow, I had it a long time.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
There's another Goya.
Is it easier to learn on anylon string than it is on a
steel string?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
as your first guitar, I think it's a pretty common
belief that it is mostly becausethe strings don't dig into your
fingers in quite the same wayBig ruts, but I don't know in
reality though, becauseclassical guitars can have
pretty wide necks and can beharder to play in other ways, so
(28:00):
it cuts a lot of different ways.
I think the main thing iswhatever instrument really grabs
you, speaks to you, makes youwant to play, it is the one you
should be playing.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
A lot of people got their first guitar for Christmas
, so you know, Santa isdefinitely a music lover,
apparently, as we can hear inthis next voicemail from Robin
Haynes.
Speaker 16 (28:32):
I went to a professional actor training
program at the University ofWashington.
They told us the first week wewere there that we had to learn
to play a musical instrument.
So I went to a friend and askedhim will you teach me to play
the guitar?
And I asked my parents for aguitar.
They gave me a Kahn studentmodel classical guitar for
Christmas and I used that thatyear.
The following summer I spent 60bucks on a used Yamaha FG-150,
(28:55):
my first steel string guitar,which I still have, and I traded
the Kahn classical for a banjo,a K old Kahn, a K resonator
banjo.
I think that the other guy gotthe better half of that deal.
I sold the banjo when Igraduated from college.
That all happened in 1973.
Anyway, that's my story.
Thanks, bye.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Here's another one from Jim Horton who writes in my
older sister in about 1962,received an inexpensive Sears
guitar for Christmas.
I took it over and played thehell out of it.
I was really into cowboy songs.
We had a luthier in Ann Arbornamed Herb David.
He had a little shop way in athird floor building.
It was a gathering spot forfolkies of the era.
(29:38):
I started hanging around andlistening to the Pickers.
Herb was a really nice guy andI bugged him to find me a good
guitar.
He came up with the Martin 016New Yorker.
It had silk and steel stringsand it was a great folk guitar
and at the time inexpensive.
As a poor student I sold it topay the rent a few years later.
How I wish I had it now.
(30:05):
Here's another reader write-infrom Sandy Shirts.
She says I received my firstguitar, a Regal classical guitar
, for Christmas from my parentsin 1966 when I was 13 years old.
For a year before this my oldersister and I would sit on the
back porch, she on her guitarand me on my ukulele, playing
folk and campfire songs.
I found the transition fromukulele to guitar very easy.
(30:27):
I'm now learning jazz chordsand still have my prized
classical guitar.
It has wonderful tone.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
And here's a story from Walter Shank Jr.
My first guitar was a Christmaspresent at age 12 or 13.
It was a $19.95 SearsSilvertone I think.
It was made out of some type ofcompressed wood, maybe even a
type of heavy compressedcardboard.
In places the sound andplayability was poor, but I took
(30:56):
lessons for a year and learnedhow to read notes and play the
first five books of the Alfred'sBasic Guitar Method.
I paid for the lessons byhelping out at the music store
and mowing their lawn areas.
Unfortunately, my career choiceand subsequent practice demands
kept me away from further studyuntil fairly recently.
Since retirement, I progressedfrom where I left off with a few
(31:20):
much nicer guitars and enjoy itimmensely.
My love for guitar started at avery early age, listening to
Chet Atkins, and neverdiminished.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Here's a story from Barrett Hurwitz who writes in.
Here's a story from Barrett Hur, from a friend who could play,
(31:59):
but Uncle Arthur knew better.
You need lessons and can'tteach yourself.
But I felt confident so Iborrowed my uncle's guitar and
took it home, convincing myfather I could do it.
For about a month I played andpracticed and learned chords and
rudimentary Travis pickinguntil I proved to my father I
could play and deserve my ownguitar.
My dad was generous andencouraging, so we visited our
(32:22):
local Tony Pacheco's guitarstudio where I set my eyes on a
beautiful blonde nylon stringEspana guitar made in Sweden.
Although it was more expensivethan the other guitars Tony had,
my dad bought it for me.
Within six months I had formeda Peter Paul and Mary type group
and we entertained at our highschool senior class banquet.
Although I later switched tosteel string guitars and have a
(32:44):
collection of 20, I still haveand love that nylon string
Espana which I have now ownedfor 53 years.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
So many of these people who wrote in still have
their first guitars.
That's really great.
They were luckier than I washaving my guitar smashed.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
You know, some people got their guitars a gift, Some
people got it for Christmas.
But let's hear how TommyEmanuel got his first guitar.
Speaker 17 (33:12):
My first guitar I got for my fourth birthday, so I
don't remember it well.
I do know that it was a littlethree-quarter size guitar and it
had cowboys painted on it.
I don't remember what brand itwas, but it was pretty cheap,
(33:32):
obviously.
And the first thing I learnedto play on it was the chords to
a Marty Robbins song calledLittle Green Valley, and my
mother used to play it on thesteel guitar and I played the
rhythm, and that's my firstguitar story.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
It makes sense that Tommy Emanuel would have started
at age four, though, because hesounds sort of like he's been
playing the guitar since birth.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
That's just yes, it makes a lot of sense right.
Here's another story about aguitar as a gift.
This is from Mitch Levine whowrites in my first acoustic was
a 69 Guild F312 Brazilian12-string that my then-fiance
bought as an engagement presentin 1970.
She is still my wife he makessure to put that in there and I
(34:24):
still have the guild.
It's been through a couple ofmajor overhauls and repairs but
it's built like a tank.
I can strum a chord, go forcoffee and it's still singing
when I get back.
Sunburst finish.
Just beautiful and well-loved.
Jeff, we have heard so manystories about first guitars.
When you were putting togetherthat first issue and that
(34:45):
feature about my First Guitar,did it have a similar feeling to
how you're feeling?
Speaker 3 (34:53):
now.
In that case I was interviewingall these musicians who went on
to be renowned artists in abunch of different fields and
they grew up in very differenttimes, very different
circumstances, played differentkinds of music, but they all
came forward to do thisprofessionally, to make their
(35:15):
names as musicians.
And I think what strikes melistening to these stories now,
and all the great stories thatpeople shared, is how you know
the people, regardless of whatthey go on to do in their lives,
that this connection that getsforged by being introduced to
(35:38):
the guitar changes your life andstays with you no matter what
you do.
And even if you put it asidedon't really do it much for
decades, you can come back to itand you can be right back in
that space that you were whenyou were 15 years old and just
starting to play.
So it's just a reminder to meabout how you know everybody
(36:02):
starts in that place of thissound that grabs you and this
desire to make some kind of asound.
And, and you know, the peoplewhose names we never hear of as
professional musicians are rightin that same zone as the ones
who grew up to be legends of theinstrument and famous around
(36:25):
the world.
So, um, it's just a uh learning, discovering the instrument,
just just uh.
Changes and enriches your life,I think, wherever, wherever you
take it or don't take it yeahit.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
It's not about, uh, if you have a music career or if
you play a thousand shows or ifyou become a guitar professor
or anything like that.
I think it's just about playingit and what it means to you.
You know, um, that's a greatpoint that the, you know the
players whose names we don't seeon the marquee have just as
(37:03):
passionate stories as theartists that have gone on to
change.
You know, guitar playing in oneway or another and that are, in
a lot of ways, household names.
It's that, that bond of thatfirst moment and a lot of the
ways that we get to share.
That is talking about our firstguitars, whether they're the
(37:24):
high action K or the Goya or awonderful handmade instrument
specifically for you.
Everybody's got that firstguitar story and everybody seems
to remember it.
That's the thing that stood outto me.
Everybody was.
It was either very fresh intheir mind or they sounded like
(37:46):
they were having a good timereminiscing about it.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
For sure, and it's really fun for me to hear those
stories and think back on itmyself.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
We have so many more great guitar stories to share
with you.
Here's part two of my FirstGuitar.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Starting to play is not always easy, of course, so
here are some tales of highaction and other struggles of
beginning guitarists.
So here's a story that comesfrom Jeff Bortley.
Speaker 18 (38:23):
Okay, here's my story about my first guitar.
I was 16 in the summer of 1964,and our mother was driving from
Maryland to Reno, nevada, tosecure a quickie divorce from
our dad.
My younger brother and sisterand I were also in the car
(38:44):
Nearing our destination.
We stopped in Elko, nevada,where I popped into a music
store and there I bought, forthe staggering sum of $50, a
used large-body K six-stringsteel string guitar.
I'd been playing a beat uplittle steel string with
(39:04):
ridiculously high action upuntil then, and that K played
like a dream and sounded likethe New York Philharmonic
Orchestra to me.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
So here's a story from Francesco Biraghi.
He writes it was June or July1970.
A school fellow, paolo, used tobring his 12-string Hofner
guitar to play the Beatles andthe Rolling Stones.
I fell in love immediately withthe sound of that instrument,
so I asked Santa Claus for aguitar, and my mummy, always
(39:36):
sympathetic with her only son,me, found a store with
entry-level guitars at a verygood price.
The result was a purchase of ahorrible EKO guitar with steel
strings.
Starting from that day, ourhome was full of sounds, in
spite of the bloody fingertips.
Around October of the same year,after a summer of compulsive
(39:57):
strumming, my father sat down inmy room and told me.
After a summer of compulsivestrumming, my father sat down in
my room and told me my belovedFrancesco, why don't you take
into consideration to study theguitar with a good teacher?
Some weeks after I applied tothe Scuola Musical di Milano in
the class of the unforgettablemaestro Antonio Barbieri, and my
(40:17):
first guitar, totally uselessfor a serious study, was soon
replaced by a brand new YamahaG100A with nylon strings.
I stop here.
But I must admit that my badguitar EK0 had been enough to
light a flame that still burns52 years later.
And I still own both myterrible EKO and my old Yamaha.
(40:41):
By the way, my old schoolfellow Paolo is a well-reputed
guitar maker, and me I am aprofessor of guitar at the State
Conservatory Giuseppe Verdi ofMilano, italy.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
That was a twist and a turn and a half.
I did not expect him to becomea professor of guitar.
That was great.
That EKO that horrible EKO, ashe points out really did light a
fire.
That stuck with him.
I love that one.
Speaker 19 (41:16):
Hi, my name is Jeff.
My first guitar was a SearsSilvertone that I ordered by
calling Sears and actuallyplacing a mail order for this
guitar, and it was not a verygood guitar.
But I had decided to buy thisguitar in the spring of 69, the
(41:40):
summer of love, after I realizedI could sing.
So, anyway, this guitar wasreally, really in bad shape as
far as the action was concerned,but I had no idea that it was
bad until I got my next guitar,which was a Yamaha FG-150.
It was a Yamaha FG-150.
But my brother pawned thatguitar on an Ibanez SG lookalike
(42:08):
, but he won't admit that he didit.
Anyway, I had saved up moneyfrom working on the ocean as a
deckhand and so it was a guitarthat I really missed.
And I see it in pictures and Igo boy, it looked really good in
pictures but it really soundedterrible.
(42:28):
Anyway, that's my story.
Take care All over.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
We have another story here.
A reader, glenn Watt, writes in.
In 1965, I had just graduatedhigh school and, with part-time
work, bought a new Harmonyhollow body F-hole arch top
guitar for $29 at a neighborhoodmusic store.
It came with black diamondsteel strings that turned my
fingertips black every time Iplayed it.
(42:56):
The action was high, very high,and he spells out V-E-R-Y Very
high.
A few friends and I startedperforming in a folk group, the
Others.
The first song I learned toplay on it was the two-chord Tom
Dooley.
We played Japanese churchpicnics and food bazaars from
(43:17):
Gilroy to Sebastopol.
We called it the ChickenTeriyaki Circuit.
I quit playing and singingentirely while working and took
it up again in retirement.
I volunteer at a SacramentoAsian Senior Center teaching
ukulele and guitar.
In the last 14 years I'vestarted eight uke and guitar
clubs that entertain at churches, nursing homes, hospitals,
(43:39):
museums, health fairs, etc.
I have cancer, though clear now, but it's been a great life
filled with friends, guitars andmusic.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Wow, what a fantastic retirement plan that is.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
Here is reader Jim McNabb, who writes in my dad
played his grandmother's guitaron the radio before becoming a
businessman.
His first guitar purchase withhis own money was a Kalamazoo,
and it became my first when Iwas in high school.
I didn't know how he managed toplay it.
The action was high and thestrings were like cables.
I put plastic strings on it.
(44:12):
My parents told me that if Iplayed it for a year they would
give me a guitar of my choice.
I did, and they gave me a GoyaG10, a good Goya when they were
still made in Sweden.
And here's a story aboutanother Apache lover.
It wasn't just Richard Thompson, acoustic guitar.
(44:42):
Reader Paul Balmer writes in itwas Liverpool, england, 1960.
I was nine and nearing ChristmasI listened to Apache by the
shadows on my dad's recordplayer.
What would you like forChristmas, said dad.
I want whatever is making thatsound, I exclaimed so off.
We went to a local Liverpoolmusic store, hesse's, where the
(45:03):
then-unknown John Lennon earlierbought his first guitar from
the same guy.
The five-pound, half-sizedmonstrosity was strung with
brass strings and was unplayable.
I also received the Francis NDay guitar tutor, which starts
with Tune your guitar to thepiano.
We had no piano, which startswith tune your guitar to the
piano we had no piano and thensuggests you learn all 72
(45:23):
chromatic notes on the sixstrings up to the 12th fret.
Fortunately, a kindly Frenchteacher spotted the unplayable
guitar and sent me to Hesse'sfor some nylon strings and a
clock key to adjust the neckangle.
We restrung the guitar, tunedit up and two years later I was
on TV playing with the schoolband the Francis and Day Tudor,
which I still have.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Remains indecipherable, all these
stories about these terriblefirst guitars just make me
appreciate all the more how goodthe low-end, entry-level
(46:02):
guitars are.
Now they're pretty easy to findones that are well set up, that
have good sound, that you don'thave to battle to play, so
that's just been a hugeadvantage.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
It's hard to overstate the importance the
Beatles had on the world, solet's take a look at how they
inspired a whole generation topick up the guitar.
Here's Bob Capo who writes in.
After seeing the Beatles on TVin 1964, I pestered my parents
enough to take me for lessons Iwas just turning nine years old
and they agreed to rent a Stellaguitar from the store for three
(46:41):
months to see if I would stickwith it.
I did.
Then the deal was made Anotherthree months with the rental and
they would buy a guitar forChristmas.
So I stuck with it.
And for that Christmas in 1964,I received a new Gibson ES-120T
, which I still own, and startedmy collection, which is
currently 72 guitars.
In 1971, on the suggestion thatthe Beatles remove the finish
(47:06):
on several of their guitars, Idid the same.
It really did sound better, butI soon regretted losing that
beautiful sunburst finish.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
Wait a minute.
He said he has 72 guitars right.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
That is a lot of guitars that would keep a person
busy.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
So here is another story that comes from Les Deegan
.
Pop music only had an effect onme when I heard the Beatles and
they came from the same placeas I, liverpool.
I had to learn to play guitar,just had to.
I had a friend who lived nearme who was older and had a job.
I knew he had a couple ofbattered guitars which he'd
(47:41):
bought.
One of these guitars had nostrings on it and I asked him if
I could buy it.
It was an acoustic with nobranding on it, but it didn't
matter, it was a guitar.
He said I could buy it for onepound.
I was 14 years old and helpedmy dad in the butcher shop at
weekends, so I had the one poundto buy the battered guitar.
(48:02):
My Jamaican uncle was anengineer and could do most
anything.
He took the guitar and strippedit down, sprayed it red.
It looked fantastic.
I bought strings and put themon and the action was pretty
good.
I taught myself to play on thatold guitar.
I transferred to bass someyears later but still play
guitar.
I've had a great musical lifethanks to my one-pound red
(48:26):
guitar".
Of course, some people who getintroduced to the guitar at a
young age decide not only thatthey want to play it, but they
want to make one themselves.
So here is a story that comesfrom Dick Boak, a long, storied
(48:50):
career with Martin Guitars.
Speaker 20 (48:53):
Hi, this is Dick Boak from my home in Nazareth,
pennsylvania.
I'm here with my very firstguitar.
I suppose I should be a littleembarrassed to tell you I didn't
buy the guitar.
But I, from my home in Nazareth, pennsylvania, I'm here with my
very first guitar.
I suppose I should be a littleembarrassed to tell you I didn't
buy the guitar, but I made itin my basement.
I really wanted a sitar afterhearing Ravi Shankar and George
Harrison play the sitar early on, I guess around the time of
(49:18):
Rubber Soul.
So I went down to the basementand I got a two by four and some
quarter inch plywood and somemat board, a little bit of
leather for the pick guard andsome brass wire to put the frets
in.
I didn't know where the fretsshould go, so I drilled pairs of
(49:40):
holes a 16th of an inch apartall the way up the neck so that
I could locate the frets.
And then it has nine stringsand it still works more or less
Kind of the way I tune it, uh,uh.
(50:01):
Well, the novelty wears offpretty quickly, but I'm actually
(50:26):
quite proud of it.
I think I was 15 or 16 yearsold at the time and this led to
many other instruments made inmy basement.
In my basement.
It did get me started on a longcareer with musical instruments
and a tremendous job at MartinGuitarist, so I guess these
(50:48):
instruments serve their purpose.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
We've got a reader who also built his own guitar,
ian Johnson.
He writes in growing up in theUK in the late 40s and early 50s
, I loved the new rock and rollmusic and also started listening
to blues, country and folk.
There was no way I would everhave enough money for a real
guitar, so I decided to make one.
I went to the woodwork masterat school and said Please, sir,
(51:15):
can I make a guitar in thewoodwork room after school?
When he stopped laughing hesaid Okay, johnson, so long as
you bring your own materials.
I found a picture of Buddy Hollyholding his Stratocaster at
right angles to the camera so Icould copy the shape.
I won't go into detail aboutall the hurdles I had to cross,
but the electrics were where Ifinally was defeated.
(51:37):
The man in our local radio shophelped me make a low impedance
pickup so I could play itthrough our old radio.
When I left school and got ajob, I finally bought a real
guitar and sold this for a fewpounds to a junk shop.
A week or two later I saw itbeing played on stage at a
nearby youth club.
It takes a lot of drive to, Ithink, persevere in that project
(52:02):
when all you have is a photoand a lot of mistakes to go by.
You know, speaking of saving upfor that first guitar, if you
weren't able to build your ownin the woodshop you could just
save every penny you got.
Here's a clip of a 1960 paperroute guitar.
Speaker 21 (52:22):
It was 1960 on a Sunday morning and I'd stopped
at a house nearby to collect onmy paper route.
Inside I could hear someoneplaying a blues tune on a guitar
.
The lady of the house asked ifI'd like to come in and listen.
The guy was playing a GibsonJ45.
He asked if I'd like to learnto play and offered to teach me
(52:45):
after school.
Excitedly, I peddled home andtold my dad who said with a
smirk of reservation if youlearn to play one song, I'll buy
you a guitar.
Next Sunday I woke up.
My parents sat at the end ofthe bed with the neighbor's
guitar and played and sang avery short, humorous version of.
After the Ball Was Over, thenext day Dad bought me a Harmony
(53:05):
Sober new jumbo guitar.
I played that guitar until 1962, but traded it at $90 for a
moderately worn 1928 Martin 0018from a used guitar shop in
Kansas City, missouri.
Such a deal, and I've played itever since.
If I can make it to age 82,it'll still be playing sweetly
(53:25):
at 100 years old.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
And here's another paper route guitar from Gordon
Scott who writes in my firstguitar was a Guild M20, the
so-called Nick Drake guitar.
I bought it with my paper routemoney in the fall of 1960, I
think it cost $100.
The tax was $4.
The serial number suggests itwas made in 1957.
(53:47):
My guitar teacher wasintroducing me to jazz
progressions, but I wanted toplay folk music.
I had three lessons with JerryGarcia using that guitar, which
is why I learned to cotton pickwith two fingers instead of
three.
The guitar traveled around withme when I was in the Navy.
I'd play Oki from Muskogee andFixin' to Die Rag in the Gulf of
Tonkin.
(54:08):
When I bought my firstDreadnought another guild I lent
the M20 to my brother.
We still have it and it soundslike silver bells.
Here's a voicemail from BruceGowan.
Speaker 22 (54:20):
I actually bought my first guitar at Sears in
Spartanburg, south Carolina, in1968.
With the $27.95, I made PickingCotton on my family's cotton
farm Probably the last personyou'll ever hear say that.
I bought the guitar a cowboymodel that I still have 50 years
(54:43):
later 50-plus years later and aguitar songbook.
It had the pictures of thechords and how to make them and
how to strum.
It wasn't a mail bay, it wassomebody else's and it was long
lost and fell apart.
But the first song I learnedwas Go Tell Aunt Rhody, and then
Down in the Valley was C, g andD the first three chords.
(55:07):
So I still had the guitar,learned to play, bought a better
one in high school, had a briefstint as a duet performer which
helped me get a scholarship tocollege, so that Sears guitar
paid for itself many times overit's amazing what a big role
that Sears played in people'sstories here, including mine.
Speaker 3 (55:28):
My guitar was a Sears guitar.
Here's another reader storythat comes from Don Kellett.
I was nine years old and myparents had been asking me about
music lessons.
My mom, my older sister, playedpiano.
I declined.
I really wanted to play guitar.
Then they wanted me to sign upfor accordion lessons.
At that point I was financiallysomewhat independent, had a
(55:52):
paper route and said I would buymy own guitar and pay for my
lessons.
Parents were not thrilled thiswas the Elvis era but conceded
and we went to a local musicshop in Port Credit, ontario,
where I purchased a baby Stella,the three-quarter size version,
complete with sunburst finish,started taking lessons and I
(56:15):
have never stopped playingguitar.
Not sure what happened to theStella A couple of years later
it was traded in for a Hoffnerelectric guitar and amp.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Here's a voicemail from Charles Joseph.
Speaker 23 (56:28):
We didn't have a lot of money growing up.
My mom, my dad, couldn't giveme money to buy the guitar I
wanted.
So I went to my Aunt Dolly, andshe agreed to buy it, but I had
to earn enough money for halfthe guitar.
So I said okay.
So I had to clean out the shed,had to cut grass, had to do
(56:49):
some other chores, help herclean the house, and after a few
days I earned enough money forhalf of the guitar.
And my aunt kept her promise,promise and she bought the
guitar.
I used my money and she usedher money.
It was a.
My first guitar was a K with theF holes and this guy, rex, he
(57:15):
could play.
So he showed me the song PeterGunn Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum,
bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.
So I was playing that over andover again.
I was driving my mother nutswith it and eventually I learned
some other songs from someother guys that played the
(57:37):
guitar.
And then I got you know music,books and stuff like that and
learned the songs I wanted tolearn.
That's my first guitar, okay, kwith the F holes.
All right, thank you.
Speaker 1 (57:51):
Here's another story from Randy Becker about using
his own money to buy his firstguitar.
He writes in I came home fromschool one day in 1969.
Mom was watching TV and I sawChet Atkins playing Yankee,
doodle and Dixie at the sametime on one guitar.
I thought to myself I need tolearn how to do that.
(58:18):
I was 12 years old.
I took a hammer to my piggybank, gathered my entire life
savings and $14 to the baseexchange and bought a
three-quarter size steel string,mile-high action laminated
guitar and a Mel Bay chord book.
When I got home I blew past thepart about tuning and started
to learn how to finger chords.
In that first week I wrote myfirst song, a not-too-subtle
ripoff of Paul Revere's IndianNation.
(58:39):
My lack of tuning wasn't aproblem for me, but my family
was not impressed.
Finally, taking theircomplaints seriously, I went
back to the page about tuningand suddenly everything sounded
better.
It's been a long but wonderful51-year journey with many twists
and turns, but I'm forevergrateful to my mom for having
the TV on that afternoon.
Speaker 3 (59:00):
Lots of folks have gotten their first guitars in
the mail, ordering them fromcatalogs, and here's a story
about that from Marv Kruger.
He writes my first guitar is aSears and Roebuck mail-order
guitar my dad bought sometimearound 1940.
In 1957, dad, grandpa and a mannamed Elmer started building us
(59:23):
a new house.
The old house was raised up ontimbers and moved to a yard
space and used for a feed shed.
One day in 1963, I noticed adoor in the peak of the feed
shed, got a ladder and startedexploring with my 10-year-old
imagination running wild ofhidden Jesse James loot that
must be there.
(59:44):
Instead I found this Sears andRoebuck archtop guitar and a
Smiley Burnett songbook.
I drug this guitar down theladder and it became mine.
I still play it today.
Speaker 1 (59:56):
Reader, gene Zerler.
I'm sorry, gene, if Ipronounced your name wrong.
Gene Zerler writes in.
In 1959, I was eight years oldand we lived in Lexington,
massachusetts, near Boston,where the folk music scene was
happening.
The songs of Woody Guthrie andrecordings by Pete Seeger made a
strong impression on me and Iasked my mother if I could take
(01:00:16):
guitar lessons.
She found a guitar teachernamed Peter Lentz who was a folk
singer in the Bostoncoffeehouses.
I don't remember much about myvery first guitar, but I suspect
that it was ordered from theSears catalog.
It didn't have much tone and itwas difficult to play.
I took my first lessons on thatguitar and had some success in
spite of the limitations.
(01:00:37):
As my playing improved, petersuggested to my parents that I
needed a better instrument.
In 1960, I was given a newMartin D-18.
I'm not sure why that make andmodel was selected for me, but I
suspect it was Peter's choice.
It was perfect for an adultfolk singer in Boston, but it
was too large for anine-year-old boy and I recall
(01:00:58):
that I played with a capo on thethird to the fifth fret until
my arm was long enough to reachdown to the end of the neck.
So my first guitar was nothingspecial, but my second guitar
was the one I played that D-18through high school and got
involved with playing in rockbands, switched to electric
guitar for a while, then I wentoff to college and medical
(01:01:19):
school and did not play guitarfor a number of years.
In the 1980s my dad was gettingready to move out of our old
house and he called to ask whathe should do with my old guitars
.
I was reunited with my D-18, soI started playing again and
going to guitar and songwritingworkshops.
I have acquired a number ofother guitars and instruments
over the years, but the D-18still serves as the foundation
(01:01:41):
of my playing style and theheart of my collection.
The serial number indicates itwas made sometime in 1959.
The serial number indicates itwas made sometime in 1959.
It has the classic D18 sprucetop, mahogany back and sides,
mahogany neck and ebonyfingerboard with closed deluxe
metal tuners.
It does not have an adjustabletruss rod and required a re-fret
and neck reset in the 1990s.
(01:02:03):
Otherwise it's unchanged fromthe day it left the Martin
factory.
Here's another story about ahigh-action guitar.
Speaker 12 (01:02:10):
I grew up in Lakeland, florida.
I was about 10 years old, Ithink, and taking some guitar
lessons from a local teacher.
I went to a music store with mydad.
They had this guitar hanging onthe wall that had a pickup in
it, an acoustic guitar with apickup in it, which really
impressed me.
The name brand on the guitarthere was a logo that just said
(01:02:35):
Fame, and the action was so highon the thing I could barely
press the strings down, but ithad a pickup and I was impressed
and that was my first guitarthat my dad paid, I think, $35
for.
And then I bought a littleGibson amp from one of my
(01:02:56):
brother's friends about sixmonths later for $20.
He'd torn off the grill and hehad a little piece of like zebra
skin fabric you know zebraprint fabric hanging over the
front of the speaker and it wasall blown out and worn out and
neither thing was good enoughfor me to learn anything.
(01:03:18):
The action was so high that Iactually took the bridge out of
the saddle to get the stringsjust a little lower.
I didn't know anything aboutadjusting the neck, I don't even
know if it had a truss rod.
It had two screws on the bridge.
That did absolutely nothing,but I did love that guitar for
(01:03:38):
several years and I ended up, Ithink that's the only guitar
I've ever sold to another kid.
in junior high I sold the ampand the guitar for 25 bucks.
Anyway, that's the story of myfirst guitar.
Have a nice day.
Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
So some of us have had unorthodox let's say
introductions to the guitar.
Here's a great story aboutsomeone who started playing
guitar to quit smoking.
Speaker 10 (01:04:04):
Hi, I'm 32 years old .
I was wanting to quit smokingand I'd always wanted to learn
how to play guitar.
A new coworker of mine playedand offered to teach me, and he
was also a part-time bull rider.
And he broke his arm and so hebrought his guitar and a guitar
book Alfred's Basic GuitarMethod to work one morning and
(01:04:27):
said here I can't play, whydon't you teach yourself?
So I quit smoking, used hisguitar and got hooked.
That Christmas a local guitarstore had a spot in the mall and
they were having agoing-out-of-business sale and
had their guitars half off.
So I went in, looked around,found this beautiful little
(01:04:48):
Alvarez six string acoustic andbought it, and that was my first
guitar.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
And if quitting smoking wasn't an unusual enough
way to start playing guitar,here's one that features ping
pong and a gambling debt, butmaybe not in the way you think
Richard Weissman writes in.
When I was 17 years old, I wasa student at Goddard College in
Plainfield, vermont.
I was also a semi-professionaltable tennis player, ranked
(01:05:15):
number seven in the country forboys under 18.
The way that table tennisworked the only way you could
make money playing was to gamble.
I regularly played one studentfrom Baltimore and he worked up
a huge paper debt to me.
It became obvious that thiscouldn't continue, so one day he
suggested that we go to hisroom and I find something in
there to satisfy the debt.
(01:05:37):
I found a Harmony MontereyF-hole guitar.
The action was very high, butthe idea of getting a free
guitar was appealing.
I played that guitar for abouttwo years, developing quite a
set of calluses.
In my junior year I went toschool in New York and Jerry
Silverman, my guitar teacher atthe time, suggested I might want
to get something a bit moreplayable if I ever expected to
(01:05:58):
improve my skills.
I bought a Favilla guitar anddiscarded the harmony.
I don't remember what I didwith it, but I was happy to see
it go.
This was the only time that mytable tennis and music careers
coincided.
Well, here's a clip from AndyMarino, who found his guitar in
the most unlikely of places.
Speaker 8 (01:06:19):
My first guitar was.
I found it in the garbage canand one of my neighbor's garbage
cans that had a hole in theback.
It was a Stella, a guitarharmony Stella I think it was
and it had three strings on it.
And I lived pretty close toJamaica Bay in Brooklyn so I
(01:06:40):
used to go fishing, so I put onsome fishing line.
The thin, thinnest line I hadwas for the E string and then I
worked my way down how toreplace the G string and also
the A string with thicker lineand that's what I started
playing guitar on back in 1964and thanks so much.
(01:07:06):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
Bye-bye.
If anybody remembers the bluechip stamps, this one's for you.
Speaker 24 (01:07:13):
When I was a teenager years ago, there was a
thing called blue chip stampsand if you bought things like at
the gas station and the market,they would give you so many
blue chip stamps to put in abook.
They would give you so manyblue chip stamps to put in a
(01:07:36):
book and after you had enoughbooks you could exchange it for
different things.
My mom got me and my brother ablue chip stamp guitar, which
I'm sure was a piece of junk,but I rarely played it.
My brother played it mostly,and anyway, that's my story.
Fortunately, I can affordbetter guitars today.
Thank you very much, Bye-bye.
Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
Here's a story about someone who wants to pass down
his first guitar, and it justgot me really thinking about how
the joy that the guitars andthe music that they make bring
to us can really last a lotlonger than we might initially
think that they can.
Speaker 15 (01:08:18):
This is Shelton Spicer.
I'm just calling about thearticle on your first guitar.
I got my first guitar myparents sacrificed a lot to buy
it back in November of 1960, aGibson Spanish guitar model LGO
R6593-17.
Case and all was $70.74.
(01:08:44):
And I still own it today andI'm going to give it to my
oldest son to put in a glasscase when I pass away.
And the first thing I everplayed on it was Wildwood Blower
.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
Jeff, we have heard so many stories about first
guitars.
When you were putting togetherthat first issue and that
feature about my first guitar,did it have a similar feeling to
how you're feeling now?
Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
In that case, I was interviewing all these musicians
who went on to be renownedartists in a bunch of different
fields and they grew up in verydifferent times, very different
circumstances, played differentkinds of music, but they all
came forward to do thisprofessionally, to make their
names as musicians.
(01:09:43):
I think what strikes melistening to these stories now,
and all the great stories thatpeople shared, is how the people
, regardless of what they go onto do in their lives, um, that
this connection that gets forgedby being introduced to the
guitar, um, changes your lifeand stays with you no matter
(01:10:04):
what you do.
And even if you put it asidedon't really do it much for
decades, you can come back to itand you can read right back in
that space that you were whenyou were 15 years old and just
starting to play.
So it's just a reminder to meabout how everybody starts in
that place, of this sound thatgrabs you and this desire to
(01:10:28):
make some kind of a sound.
And and, uh, you know the, thepeople whose names we never hear
of as professional musicians,are right in that same zone as
the, the ones who grew up to belegends of the instrument and
famous around the world.
So, um, it's just a uh uh.
Learning, discovering theinstrument just changes and
(01:10:54):
enriches your.
Speaker 1 (01:10:55):
That, I think it's just about playing it and what
it means to you.
You know that's a great point,that the you know the players
(01:11:18):
whose names we don't see on themarquee have just as passionate
stories as the artists that havegone on to change.
You know guitar playing in oneway or another and that are, in
a lot of ways, household names.
It's that bond of that firstmoment and a lot of the ways
(01:11:38):
that we get to share.
That is talking about our firstguitars, whether they're the
high action K or the Goya or awonderful handmade instrument
specifically for you.
Everybody's got that firstguitar story and everybody seems
to remember it.
That's the thing that stood outto me.
(01:12:00):
Everybody was.
Speaker 3 (01:12:01):
it was either very fresh in their mind or they
sounded like they were having agood time reminiscing about it,
for sure they sounded like theywere having a good time
reminiscing about it For sure,and it's really fun for me to
hear those stories and thinkback on it myself.
Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
The Acoustic Guitar Podcast is brought to you by the
team at Acoustic GuitarMagazine.
I'm your host, nick Grizzle,joined for this episode by
Jeffrey Pepper Rogers.
Our theme song was composed byAdam Perlmutter and performed
for this episode by JeffreyPepper Rogers.
Our theme song was composed byAdam Perlmutter and performed
for this episode by JeffreyPepper Rogers.
The Acoustic Guitar Podcast isdirected and edited by Joey
Lusterman.
Tanya Gonzalez is our producer.
(01:12:40):
Executive producers for theAcoustic Guitar Podcast are
Lizzie Lusterman and StephanieCampos-Dalbray.
Thank you to everyone who sentrecorded messages, left
voicemails and wrote in to sharethe stories of their first
guitar for this episode.
We really appreciate it.
Eric Bibb, bruce Coburn,courtney Hartman, richard
(01:13:00):
Thompson, bajie Asad, sharonIsbin, tommy Emanuel, dick Boak
and the dozens of readers andfans of Acoustic Guitar Magazine
.
Dick Boak and the dozens ofreaders and fans of Acoustic
Guitar magazine.
Join us again next month forthe Acoustic Guitar podcast
where we chat with Tommy Emanuelin a conversation you
definitely don't want to miss.
Thank you so much for yoursupport.
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