Last Updated: August 10, 2008
I bought my first real
equipment. And I’m darn proud of what I had.
My first playable guitar was a Kingston, violin-shaped guitar.
I found it in the base exchange on Charleston AFB and it sold for a whopping
$32.00, plus tax. It was a solid-body, two-pickup guitar, and one of the most
memorable of my early guitars—mostly because I bought it with my own hard-earned
money.
It had been lying, without a case, high overhead on the top of
a display case in the music store. They mostly sold records and only occasionally
carried any instruments, and even then, they were not very good in my opinion.
When I caught a glimpse of it, I asked to see it. The sales person took it down
and handed it to me. I spent about 30 minutes tuning and playing it without
any kind of amplifier. It was poorly set up, but it had potential. I wrestled
hard with buying it. I had the money, but I wasn’t sure about it. Wouldn’t
I be better off to save my money for a while longer and buy a Gibson or a Fender?
I really wanted a Gibson Les Paul, but at the rate I was saving my lawn-mowing
money and allowance, I would be in my 20’s before I could actually buy
one. I handed it back to the sales person, said "thanks" and headed
out the door.
All the way home—about a half hour walk— I thought about
it. When I got home, I talked to my mother about it. She said that I already
had a guitar. That was a Guya guitar that Dad had gotten for me during one of
his trips to Japan. It had one pickup, was a double cutaway semi-hollowbody
with a volume and tone control. It did, to its credit, have a whammy bar, but
the spring on it made the action so poor that I never used it unless I really
wanted to sound awful. It was a Chrstmas present one year and it came with an
amplifier, a matching Guya (I think) or a Teisco. It had an unbelievable 10
watts of power and a six-inch speaker. I spent hours trying to find ways to
make it look like more than it was. I took speakers out of everything I could
find and mounted them in cabinets to make it louder. Nothing worked. Sadly,
the amp wasn't even loud enough for band practices.
"But it’s only got one pickup," I said.
"Your father bought it for you," she came back.
"Dad doesn’t have to play it," I responded.
"It’s a pretty guitar," she told me.
"Other players think it’s a goofy guitar," I said.
"Your guitar sounds nice," she pointed out.
"Mom. I’m playing rock and roll. This guitar is a solid-body.
It has two pickups. It’s smaller. It sounds and looks rock and roll. It’s
violin-shaped—like Paul McCartney’s bass."
That was my trump card. Mom liked The Beatles. She thought they
were "clean-cut" and made nice music. She gave me her blessing.
I walked the 30-minute walk back to the store. It probably only
took 20 minutes this time. I paid for the guitar with my own money and walked
back to my house with it over my shoulder like Paul Bunyan carrying his axe,
proud the whole way.
There is nothing so rewarding as earning the money and paying for
your own choice of instrument. I was proud of that guitar and would still love
to have it today. I can remember how it played and it was as good as any, even
with my limited setup skills. I learned a lot on that guitar.
My first respectable amplifier was bought from a pawn shop in Charleston,
South Carolina. I found it while on an excursion with my Mom. It had a $99 price
tag on it. It was a Fender Princeton Reverb Amp. It had a black face, reverb
and tremolo, I think about 20 watts, and the previous owner had replaced the
original 10-inch speaker with a 12-inch Jensen speaker. The first time I played
the amp, I knew it was meant to be mine. It was love at first sight. And first
hear. I liked it so much, that years later I bought another one of the same
vintage and put a 12-inch speaker in it. It was just as good. Just not enough
power for stage volume unless you mike it through the sound system.
My first foot pedal was a Mosrite Fuzz Tone. It was all silver
with silver knobs. It was so cool, that much better guitar players than myself
always wanted to borrow it. It cost nearly half of what my amp cost. It got
so much use, that one day, I stomped on the footswitch and when I removed my
foot, the switched launched about three feet up into the air. One of the guys
I was jamming with said, "I don’t think it’s supposed to do that."
I had to fix it, as I’ve had to fix most of my own equipment over the years,
and ended up using a toggle switch instead of a push button (which I couldn’t
find in any local stores). Instead of stomping the box now, I had to kick it.
It was good for a few laughs.
I also had a wah-wah pedal, but it was rather non-descript. I used
it just to prove how uncoordinated I really was. To use it, you have to play
guitar and move your foot up and down totally out of time with the music. Happily,
I no longer have one, but I still can’t tap my foot in time to a song.
As I write this, I believe that I have owned a mere 13 guitars
throughout my life. I have owned two autoharps, two lap steels, one pedal steel,
one mandolin and a banjo. I have owned 11 amplifiers of which six have been
Fenders and all of them have been pre-CBS including a 1955 Fender Twin that
served me well for over 10 years.
I presently own three guitars: a 27-year-old Fender F-12; an Ibanez
Artstar 80; and a Gibson CL 40 acoustic. I still have the two lap steels (a
unique Magnatone that I have never seen before or since and a double neck Rickenbacher),
the pedal steel (a Sho-Bud Pro-1), and my second autoharp (which is nearly 30
years old). I have two amps, a Roland Jazz Chorus JC-77 and a Roland Jazz Chorus
JC-60.
I use them all regularly and see no purpose to owning an instrument
that gets no play. I've never owned anything just because I wanted it.