I guess that it all started for me when I saw The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. The music was cool, but I especially liked how angry my father got. At that moment I decided that this music was MY music.
I couldn't afford an electric guitar, but with enough whining and cajoling, I was able to persuade the folks to get me an acoustic guitar. I had to promise to only sing Tennesee Ernie Ford songs. I was 12, and this might be the first they got a clue that they couldn't take me on my word. I got a really cheapo Montgomery Ward's guitar, and proceeded to learn "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks. The folks were not impressed. By 1965 I had discovered that you really can't play rock on a cheap acoustic guitar, so I gravitated to folk music. REAL folk music...no hillbilly stuff, but real Greenwich Village folk music played by artists who played protest rallies, and wrote obscure poetry on the back of their album covers. Yeah, man !! I was the beatnik folk singer of LaGrange, Illinois, and the girls loved me.........until the Summer of Love, that is. By '67, folk singers were sort of old hat, so I really needed to get into a psychedelic band ASAP. I had saved enough from selling cigarettes that I'd shoplifted at my junior high school, that I could afford a beautiful royal blue, Sears guitar with 3 pickups, and a whammy bar. I was one of the 4 guitar players in Steel Grass, the most important acid rock band fo emerge from LaGrange, Illinois. I got to play rhythm guitar because I was the only one who knew the 3 chords in all of our songs. It took the other 3 to put the solo together. We lasted for about a year, but had to split up because the cops were looking for two of our lead guitar players, so we couldn't really gig. That's ok because by that time, it was time to get sensitive and acoustic again. James Taylor and Cat Stevens were out, and the girls in my high school wanted "Fire and Rain"..not "Inna Gadda Da Vida". Bummer. I needed a decent acoustic guitar bad. One of the guys who worked for my dad was on the verge of getting the heave ho, so to kiss up to the old man, he sold me a practically new Gibson Hummingbird for 50 bucks. It was in pretty good shape for a guitar that had "fallen off the back of a truck". I was in business. Within a few days, I had nailed "Fire and Rain", "Wild World", and "Helplessly Hoping". I had only been smoking cigarettes for abou 5 years when I was a junior in high school, so I still had enough falsetto to sing like Graham Nash. I sort of stuck with that for the next several years. I met a girl who LOVED my Donovan songs, and we got married. I didn't need the guitar to entice girls anymore, so it became sort of a hobby. When I was in college in Monterey, California, the guitar was handy at parties. I found that being in the players circle entitled me to have others fetch beers for me, and that definitely saved me some money in those days. I was pretty much in a rut until "Oh, Brother..." and "Down From the Mountain". I was really inspired by Mike's playing, and face it..who wouldn't want to look cool in bibs, a bow tie, and white hat??? I was sold. i bought my first mandolin and never looked back. That's my story. BTW - The mandolin also fits in the overhead bin on an airplane better than a guitar. Dan --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Taterbugmando" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/taterbugmando?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
