Well thanks for waiting but here it is at last. I don't know how I have managed to hold back - except it was all so long ago and photos and memories are sadly few and far between. The photo here is me (honestly) around 1967/8, really looking cool or bloody silly depending on your vintage.
In an earlier post I alluded to another photo but although I have seen it recently, it seems to have been put away safely. Have you got places like that - you will at my age, so safe that I can't remember where to even begin looking.
So, what can I say? The guitar (an arched top Hohner or Hofner with "F" holes) was a Christmas present from my parents sometime between the ages of 12 and 14. I learnt to play from Bert Weedon's book, Play In A Day. Of course What you were able to play at the end of the first day was not explicitly stated. However I persevered and learnt to play a few chords and how to pick out a melody. This latter basically from my early attempts at the piano and an ability to play by ear. If you are unsure that means hearing the tune and being able to assess where each note was on the fretboard with at least only a few near misses. Not that I used my ears in the way that Jimmy Hendrix used his teeth.
Very soon I was frustrated at my progress and took out a subscription (with my own pocket money) to a postal course. This taught me how to use all six strings to form a chord which could be moved up the fretboard - the dreaded Barre chord! An expensive way to purchase a few sheets of paper but it came thru the post regularly with enough time to practice the contents.
I also purchased books on finger style, folk, country and BLUES. The latter I had not really been subjected to before but I soon took to it because of course R&R was king and driven to a large extent by the blues. Sonny Terry and Brownie Mcghee soon became firm favourites, a few years later having the pleasure of seeing them at The Birmingham Town Hall on a tour of the UK.
Around this time (1967/8) I also started dating my wife and attending the "JUG OF PUNCH" folk club run by Ian Campbell at Digbeth Civic Hall. A couple of his band later joined groups such as Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. Over 50 years later we still see the latter as often as we can, Still touring after all this time, although there have been many changes in the line-up.
But I am running ahead of myself, I was playing rock, folk, blues and country and of course by now I had heard The Shadows (firstly Apache in 1961). This changed my life - Hank Marvin was my first real hero - and I started playing their music. This of course meant I needed an electric guitar with a tremelo arm. I purchased a cheap solid model, very faintly looking like a strat. I am unhappy to say I cannot remember the make, I have no photos or any other recollections of this guitar. It filled a gap for me and I always felt the need for a Fender Stratocaster which took until I retired in 2000 to fill. I used to play the cheap guitar through the reel to reel tape I described in chapter 1, It never seemed to warrant a more expensive amplifier. As a last ignominious mention. I cannot remember what became of that guitar, no memory at all.
The arched top model lasted a good number of years but it was knocked over and the neck fell onto a chair. The tension in the strings, of course, simply pulled the neck out of the body. I attempted repairs but it was never the same and I swapped it a number of years later for a beat up old amplifier for another guitar which I then had. But this is the end of Chapter 2, more about that next guitar then.
A younger cousin showing you the guitar
I intend to include a couple of videos over the next few posts, of songs which I wrote using this red guitar. Some of my very earliest songs from the time of my early teens. probably will seem to be quite simple and bland, but of course I like them being biased.
Thanks for reaching the end.
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