This essay, the first of a LONG series, was first published on my MySpace site, in a slightly different form. I will be reprinting them here as time permits.
Inspired by Rebecca Angler
Introduction
Every so often, someone asks me how many guitars I own. Usually, I answer with some sort of flippant response, like “not nearly enough.” Occasionally, I devote a bit more thought to the question, and try to remember how many guitars I actually have. This often takes a minute or even longer, much to the chagrin of the questioner, who was hoping to hear a simple answer like “five” or “ten” within a couple of seconds of asking the question. There are, at any given moment, quite a few guitars scattered around my apartment in various bags and cases. And I never remember what number I come up with. I always have to count them up in my head before I can respond.
A while ago, Rebecca Angler, a young woman who works in the same office I do, asked me this question as we were getting into the elevator together. Rebecca is very earnest and focused. And something about the way she asked it made me sorry I had ever been glib about it. She really wanted to know. For some reason, it felt like the first time anyone had ever asked me the question.
So I thought I would dash off a little essay listing all my guitars and what musical contexts I used them in. I figured it would take an hour or two to write. I’d send it to her. And Rebecca would know more than she ever wanted to about guitars. Problem solved.
But it turned out not to be that simple. I’ve been playing the guitar, or stringed instruments related to the guitar, since 1967. That was forty-seven years ago, and I have been playing music since 1963. That’s fifty-one years. I’ve been serious about it ever since I started. And like most musicians who’ve been playing that long, I’ve had a lot of instruments go through my hands. Like people, some leave no lasting impression, some are repellent, and some become friends for life.
As I started to write, I realized that each instrument was important to me. In some cases it’s because I aspired to own it and was finally able to achieve my goal. Sometimes it’s because one of my heroes plays a similar model. In other cases, it’s because I’ve used the instrument on recordings I’m proud of, or while playing with musicians I admire. Some instruments just ask me to take them home, at a time when I can afford to do so. And some instruments are like old girlfriends that didn’t work out, for whatever reason.
I also realized that, in writing about my instruments, I am writing a kind of autobiography, at least of my life as a working musician. Each instrument came to me at a certain point in my life, and I acquired them for reasons that seemed important at the time. And those that I no longer own left for compelling reasons as well.
Another part of the story is the people who have worked on, or modified my instruments, including me. Guitarists often customize their instruments, for sonic reasons, cosmetic reasons, or both, and I am no exception. I have also been fortunate enough to have some of the finest guitar repairmen work on my instruments, and I firmly believe that something intangible has been transmitted into the instruments as a result.
Instruments, though non-verbal, have their own stories. A guitar is made from living things, and I believe that on some level it still remembers. I also think that some of myself has been transmitted into the instruments too, especially the ones I’ve played the most. Certainly I’ve been sweating into some of them for years. As you may have guessed, I also believe in spirits and things that we cannot see or understand.
(Not all musicians share these views about instruments. My friend Val Douglas, for example, one of the deepest musicians who ever lived, disagrees with me completely.) Part of the reason that I feel this way is because of my experiences with music and my instruments. I don’t expect you to agree with me; I only ask you to listen.
I realize that I should include some technical notes for my readers who are not musicians. Perhaps I should begin by saying that guitarists (particularly electric guitarists) tend to feel about their instruments the way car nuts feel about cars. Certain makes and models (for example, Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters and Gibson Les Pauls and 335s) are seen as prestigious. Others, like the Ibanez Iceman or the Peavey T-60, are less fashionable, but have their loyal adherents. And some of the greatest guitarists take perverse delight in going against perceived wisdom by squeezing the most out of cheap and/or wacky brands (David Lindley, Buddy Miller, and Ry Cooder are famous examples).
The type of instrument a guitarist plays is often a personal statement in the same way that buying a car is a personal statement. Many of the early electric guitar designs were, in fact, inspired by car designs, and some of the original designers had prior experience in the auto industry. A guitarist sporting a pink instrument with custom inlay is making a statement, just as the car nut driving a silver 2006 Lexus with a red leather interior is saying something. The functionality of the instrument can be incidental.
Also, like car nuts, guitar players like to customize their instruments. This can be for reasons of appearance, functionality (sound and playability), or both. Over the last thirty years, an entire industry has emerged, supplying guitarists with replacement parts and accessories purporting to improve the sound or functionality of the instrument. I am no exception, having spent hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on parts and modifications in the quest for better sound. (These statements are all also applicable to guitar amplifiers, the other half of the electric guitar, but that is another essay.)
Popular modifications include changing the pickups (which are essentially specialized microphones attached to the guitar that “pick up” the sound of the instrument and send it on its way to the amplifier) and modifying the guitar’s wiring to get more sounds out of it. Also, some parts of the guitar, like the tuning keys and the frets (the wires you see on the neck of the guitar), are subject to wear and need to be replaced periodically.
Like many pop culture objects these days, guitars are also collectible. As such, they are worth more to the collector if they have all their original parts. The fact that many of the most valuable ones were put together with a screwdriver on an assembly line by factory workers, rather than by master craftsmen performing arcane rituals handed down from their ancestors on priceless hardwoods, seems to make little difference. And the fact that in many cases improved versions of the original parts are available is equally irrelevant.
I am lucky enough to own four of these collectible instruments. As I tell people who compliment me on having them, “It’s no mystery; old guitarists have old guitars!” I bought all of them when they were simply used guitars, not pricey collectibles, And I have devalued all of them significantly by trying to make them sound better and/or more playable. My children will probably never forgive me for trashing their
inheritance.
So, on to the guitars! The story of each instrument is prefaced by a heading indicating the make and model, the color, the year it came into my life, the year it left if it went elsewhere, and how much I paid for it. I either can’t remember or am too embarrassed to admit how much I’ve spent on maintenance and modifications, so don’t ask me. If I could remember, I wouldn’t tell. Here’s the first story:
Instrument Make and Model: Homemade Bass Guitar
Color/Finish: Red
Arrival Date: 1967
Departure Date: 1967
Price Paid: $0
Although I had a middle-class upbringing in rural Connecticut, like many musicians from less privileged backgrounds, I made my own instrument from available materials before I obtained one of commercial manufacturer. My father, an insurance company worker, was also an excellent amateur carpenter, During the weekends, he built things: altars, benches, chairs, tree houses, bookshelves, toys. He never charged anyone for them; I doubt that it occurred to him that he could. They were made for the church, his children, or the household. He was always drawing plans, going to the lumberyard and the hardware store, and measuring, sawing, drilling, staining, and assembling. I spent a lot of my childhood watching him work and accompanying him on his trips.
I had watched him build things ever since I could remember. What he did seemed miraculous to me. He never volunteered much information about what he was doing, but was always willing to answer my questions. When he judged I was old enough, he bought me a small red toolbox along with a hammer, a hand drill, a couple of screwdrivers, and a small saw. Then he patiently taught me how to use them, and installed a small vise next to his large one on his work bench (which he had also built himself) so we could work side by side.
If my parents were home, there was music on in the house, mostly classical and easy listening, with a smattering of jazz on the weekends. No rock and roll! My mother said it was bad music played by worse musicians. My father kept relatively quiet about it, but didn’t care for it much either.
The transistor radios my brother and I received for Christmas in 1964 changed all that. Finally we had a tiny listening environment we could program ourselves. We eventually found our way around the dial to the local top 40 radio station, WDRC, 1360 AM “Big D.” The British Invasion was in full swing and the natives, led by Motown, the Young Rascals, and a thousand garage bands, fought the invaders furiously for chart supremacy. It was a wonderful time to discover popular music. I thrilled to the chart countdown every week, rooting for my favorites, groaning when they didn’t reach number one or were displaced by something corny. Marvelous new records, sneaking into my otherwise hermetically sealed universe bubble through the three-inch speaker or, after bedtime, the tiny one-ear headphone, suggested possibilities far beyond the scope of my weekly trips to the Simsbury Public Library.
“He sounds like he’s going to the bathroom,” my mother commented when she overheard me, entranced, listening to Wilson Pickett scream and grunt his way through “Land Of 1000 Dances” while I sat on the flagstones set into the sparse Connecticut grass.
I had no rejoinder. What could I say to her? This wasn’t singing like the Metropolitan Opera my parents listened to religiously. Or like the singing in the Episcopal Church that made it possible for me to live through the services we attended every Sunday. It wasn’t even like the Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller records my parents played on Friday nights and Saturday mornings, although it was closer. For Wilson Pickett, as he insisted proudly, “Ninety-Nine And A Half Won’t Do!” For a kid who couldn’t even pick out his own clothes without careful supervison and redirection, the independence and total lack of inhibition Wilson Pickett’s music exuded was hard for me to process consciously. But I loved him and admired him tremendously in a way I did not dare to admit to a living soul.
After two years of being glued to the radio, I could stand it no longer. Young people all over the world were making music and it was aimed at other young people, not designed to please or placate parents. Kids at school were bringing in records to show off. Some were even buying instruments and starting bands. Rock groups were a hot topic of discussion in the cafeteria before school and at lunchtime. Kids debated their merits with a passion formerly reserved for sports teams. I wasn’t much of an athlete but I could read liner notes, remember song titles and band names, and listen to the radio with the best of them.
Every weekend when I went into downtown Simsbury with my father, the record bins at Hall’s Furniture, Hoffman’s Pharmacy, and Acme Department Store were full of new releases. The cover designs, the outfits the groups wore, the song titles, grew wilder and wilder. Rock bands started turning up on TV variety shows. My mother was horrified by most of them but at least she allowed me to watch.
I started asking for records as presents at Christmas or my birthday. The first one I received was “Beach Boys Today,” a fine record but not quite what I had in mind. My grandmother used to visit us regularly and was fond of bringing presents for my brother and I. Much to my surprise, she happily sought out the Dave Clark Five’s “Over And Over” (which fascinated me because of the triplet drum rolls and the harmonica solo) upon request.
I saved my allowance all summer and bought “Rubber Soul” by the Beatles, which had just come out. I paid $2.99 for the mono version (stereo was a dollar more and I only had a portable mono record player) and brought it to my best friend Ellen’s birthday party the next day. It was a transcendent event. There were girls there and I had the new Beatles album before anyone else did, making me the coolest kid in the room. Everyone was very excited that I had it; Ellen put it on right away. I had never been the coolest kid in the room; the thought that such a thing was possible had never occurred to me. I leaped around the room joyously as the album played straight through. Other kids danced too. My parents never danced. This was all very new and exciting.
Finally I could stand it no more. Being on the sidelines was unbearable. I wanted to play music, not just listen to it. My grandfather, an amateur musician, had left us a few odd instruments after his death a year earlier. My brother got a xylophone and a zither. I got a tenor banjo and a chromatic harmonica. Nothing was less rock and roll in 1967 than a tenor banjo, and only Stevie Wonder played chromatic harmonica. I played the tenor banjo in my Sunday school folk group, which was better than nothing, but this clearly was not the answer.
One of my babysitters, Charles Blakeslee, had a Hagstrom bass that he had just bought so that he could start a band. At my mother’s request he brought it over so I could see it. It was beautiful. I had never held anything like it. It had a spectacular blue finish that looked like a blue hot rod, gleaming chrome, and lots of knobs and switches. Charles didn’t bring the amp, but I didn’t care. I held the bass until my parents came back, trying to figure out how to play it. I broke the low E string trying to tune it an octave higher than it was supposed to go, much to my horror, but Charles was very cool about it. He said he had a spare set in the case.
Once I had held an actual rock and roll instrument, my fate was sealed. I needed an electric bass of my own. But I didn’t dare ask my parents for one. I couldn’t imagine how much they cost, but anything so beautiful had to be expensive. Plus you needed an amp to go with it. And my parents didn’t like the music people played with it.
We were by no means poor, but my parents were very careful with money. They had suffered through a depression and a world war. The basement was full of canned goods, K and C rations, and shelves of bottled water in case of emergency. Any major purchase was the occasion for much discussion, even if it was something we needed. I could usually coax a small toy out of my father on our weekly visits downtown if I tried hard, but anything substantial had to wait until Christmas or my birthday. I was too young to get a job. What to do? The status quo was not an option.
Then I had a flash of inspiration. When my father needed something, he went down into the basement, drew plans, bought the materials, and built it. Sometimes it took months, but he always succeeded. Maybe I could do the same! But I was in a hurry, plus I didn’t think I could build a rounded guitar body and I didn’t know the first thing about electronics. I looked around my room. Did I have a wooden box I could rework? Sadly, there was nothing. Or was there?
There in the corner was the red metal tool box my father had given me a few years before. It contained a small hammer, a hand drill, , a ruler, a small saw, some chisels, and screwdrivers. I hadn’t done much with it, since he let me use his tools whenever he wasn’t working with them. It was sitting in the corner. It wasn’t wood, but it was a box! I picked it up, tapped it, and it resonated.
Seized by rock & roll fever, I removed the tools, drilled holes in the toolbox, attached a piece of wood to it for a neck, and ran copper wire around a couple of nails at each end for strings. It looked absolutely ridiculous and my workmanship was very sloppy. But it did work. I couldn’t get enough tension on the strings to tune it into the guitar register, but it did sound quite a bit like a bass. So a bass it would be.
I tuned the copper strings to A and D by referencing my violin, drew some fret markings on the neck with my carpenter’s pencil, and started played it along with my Yardbirds and Beatles records. I figured out where the notes were pretty quickly. It wasn’t that much different from a violin. This was something I could do! I wasn’t just a listener any more. It was very exciting, even if nobody else ever found out about it. In fact, secrecy was a good idea because I had just vandalized a perfectly good toolbox. My family abhorred waste, so for the next few days I hid the toolbox bass under my bed.
All went well for a few days, until I got so carried away with playing my new instrument that I didn’t realize my father had walked in on me without my notice. A laconic person who loved music but was completely unable to play it, he reacted calmly to my construction when he discovered it. I could tell he was surprised, but the punishment I expected for defacing his present never came. In retrospect, I think he may have been proud.
I tried to hide this peculiar instrument from my mother, who disapproved of rock music, without success. But apart from a few snippy remarks when she first saw it, she remained neutral, an unusual stance for her. I expected to get in trouble for damaging my tool box, but never did. As a parent myself I can really appreciate their enlightened response to what must have seemed very odd behavior. I can’t remember what happened to this instrument, but I did get a bigger toolbox at Christmas to replace the one I modified.