My First Guitar

by Julia Crowe

  I’ve always found it difficult to play in front of other people. There is always that feeling that your playing is not quite good enough. I think my biggest concern is that younger generations might not want to play the guitar because it is not an easy instrument to learn. When I was younger, my mother gave me a 35 mm camera, and I had to learn to figure out all of the buttons and shutters in order to get a good shot. These days, you can just buy a camera and it does all the work for you. Throughout all the years, guitar has been in existence, it has not become any easier to learn to play, and my concern is kids are going to say, “This is hard. I’m not used to this!”

  What I do find inspiring are those kids who stick with it. They are so into playing they are willing to slog through their lessons. They’ll start to become interested in their music heroes, researching their influences and discovering that Bob Dylan plays a Martin guitar. Johnny Cash, a Martin. Eric Clapton, when he plays acoustic, plays a Martin. When I consider that, something tells me this company will continue to be around for some time.

  Ralph Towner

  Jazz guitarist Ralph Towner plays classical, nylon-string guitars and 12-string steel-string guitars and tends to forgo amplification. He has collaborated with Egberto Gismonti, Larry Coryell, Keith Jarrett and Gary Burton and is known for his work with the group Oregon, which mixes folk music, Indian classical forms and avant-garde jazz.

  I was a twenty-two-year-old graduate in music composition from the University of Oregon, and I went to the music store to get some valve oil for my trumpet. There was this hotshot salesman — and I’d heard something about him playing the classical guitar and thought it sounded kind of nice and even kind of difficult. I went to get the valve oil and did not even have enough money, really. Yet amazingly, this guy at the music store sold me this Martin classical guitar, which is all shaped wrong — but it was a Martin! It cost $100 and it took me a year to be able to pay for it. It’s true!

  I took one or two lessons with this guy, and he really was not a very good teacher. In fact, later I heard he was put in prison for molesting an eleven-year-old boy student, oh my god. At least I have him to thank for selling me the guitar, even though it was not shaped right, but I did not know this at the time.

  Once as a composition student I wrote a piece for flute and guitar with a difficult flute part and a really simple guitar part because I was still trying to teach myself a month after I had bought the guitar. I really wanted to play this guitar properly and very well, so I asked a professor at school who was kind of a Germanophile to recommend a good classical guitar teacher for me. He said, “Oh, Karl Scheit in Vienna,” and I said, “Where’s THAT?!” Well, I got there and I did not speak German, but they accepted me though I could hardly play.

  I love the guitar because it is a polyphonic instrument and I was really into piano. It struck me that the guitar shares many similar qualities as the piano for the ability to play multiple notes and obviously harmony. It is a colorful instrument with so many possibilities, which I discovered as I continued evolving and learning to play with this great teacher. It’s a great instrument.

  I’ve been a musician since the age of three and could imitate records on the piano. I was kind of precocious and lived in a very tiny town so I had a real American life of playing baseball. One radio station in town played nothing but country-western, which I’d hated, but I grew up listening to Duke Ellington and Nat King Cole and World War II vintage records with swing and big band music because I had some older brothers and an older sister. So that is where I had heard sophisticated music as a child.

  I had a musical family. We were all obsessed. My mother was a church organist and piano teacher and all my family played instruments, so I was not a freak but perhaps just a little freakier than the rest. From the beginning, the guitar was not joyful at all — it was so difficult. I think it was the most difficult instrument I’ve learned to play and to sound good on. For a while it just felt like a bunch of wires snagged under your fingers. It took a while to feel comfortable on it.

  Being a professional musician is not being a musician but someone who tries to make a living at it, which is always tough and risky. Playing music is one of the greatest things you can do for yourself and for other people, too. It’s funny — my wife is an actress in theater who has just completed a six month-long tour, if you can imagine (not me!) but they had a party at the end of the tour and a couple of actors picked up the guitar and they knew every Italian song written in the past 400 years, from pop songs, Neapolitan songs and standard Sicilian songs. It was incredible. They were just strumming, but it was perfect for that. I would have been a bummer in that party. I know my place and that wasn’t it. Everybody was singing out of tune and of course, in Italian. What a joy — what a great thing!

  Sonny Landreth

  Louisiana slide blues guitarist Sonny Landreth plays with a slide on his little finger to enable other left hand fingers to work the fretboard. His right hand technique also incorporates tapping, picking and slapping. Landreth has recorded with Jimmy Buffett and collaborated with Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Eric Johnson, Robben Ford, John Hiatt and Vince Gill. He brings a distinctive flavor of Cajun music, slide blues and rock to his playing.

  When we were little kids living in Mississippi, my older brother Steve and I would entertain our relatives by yowling Elvis songs and flailing away on plastic “Elvis” guitars that had been popular toys at the time. That’s how I got the guitar-playing bug, and I carried it with me when my family moved to Lafayette, Louisiana, in 1959. Though my first real experience playing music began with the trumpet when I was ten, it was in 1964, when I turned thirteen years old, that I got my first guitar. Somehow I convinced my parents that it’d be the perfect gift for my birthday even though they had already paid for the trumpet that I was still playing in the school band. I remember walking into the showroom at Prof Erny’s Music Store and seeing rows upon rows of guitars. Man, I was excited! But that excitement soon turned into confusion as I was hit with the dilemma of which one to choose. Mindful of the $50 budget I’d been given, I proceeded to take the rest of the afternoon to make my choice. Eventually, I settled on an acoustic Kay with a sunburst finish that seemed to say, “Get your folks to kick in ten extra bucks and take me home.” They agreed to the $60 plus tax but said I’d have to actually wait for my birthday to get it. The Erny’s staff put it aside on their store’s layaway plan and that sealed the deal.

  Sonny Landreth, age fourteen. (Courtesy Sonny Landreth)

  After what seemed like an eternity of anticipation, my birthday finally arrived and, after school, I caught my dad coming out of my room smiling. Sure enough, on my bed I found that big, beautiful Kay guitar. It wasn’t wrapped up or anything and my dad had simply written, “Happy 13th!” on the back of a small card he’d slipped through the strings over the neck. I’ll never forget that. Of course, I couldn’t play a single musical note yet, but I loved the way this guitar looked, felt and smelled. Plus, I’d gotten a fake tortoiseshell pick and a leather strap that came with it, so that was cool. Learning how to unlock the magic and play the songs that had me all fired me up was still very much a mystery. I just had to figure it out, and that became my mission.

  A whopping six months or so into this journey, I realized I had a problem with my beloved Kay, as the string height from the fretboard made it difficult to play. (Ironically, as I would eventually become a slider, and higher action creates better sustain and sound.) By then, José Feliciano had hit the scene on national TV and radio with a new album that included “Muleskinner Blues.” I was amazed by his virtuosity and fell in love with the sound of his flamenco style guitar with nylon-strings, so I decided to make a course correction. My brother donated yet another $60, and with that I traded in my Kay for a Gibson C-O model acoustic guitar with nylon-strings. It was sweet sounding and much easier to play but, as it turned out, I wasn’t done with finding the right axe just yet.

  About a year later, my dream-come-true mojo
was really peaking when I got my first electric rig for Christmas. This time, the guitar was a red Epiphone solid-body called the Olympic Double because it had two pickups. Since I was into reading Greek mythology at the time, having a guitar with “Olympic” in its name was a hit with me before I even plugged it in. And, well, it was red. As part of the package, I also got a little Epiphone amp with a ten-inch speaker. Meanwhile, with my best friend Tommy Alesi on drums (who went on to play over thirty years with the legendary Cajun band Beausoleil), I started my first band playing instrumental songs by The Ventures. We had to hold off on The Beatles and The Stones because I had neither the microphone nor the nerve yet to sing into one. My folks were always encouraging about my playing. However, when I plugged the guitar in everyone, including my dog, suffered in the early stages. It was THAT loud. In fact, at one point, when Tommy would come over to my house everybody would leave and take the dog with them. Then we’d get out into the carport and blast out. On the next weekend, we’d switch houses and his family would take us into the kitchen and they would all leave. One of Tommy’s brothers took a snapshot of Tommy and I playing in his family’s kitchen, and this photo is featured on the inside booklet of my first major label album South of I-10.

  With dad’s help, our first booking was for a pool party set up by my dad’s coworkers and their families from State Farm Insurance. We only knew a total of six songs, so we just played them over and over until the grown-ups had had enough and said we’d done a fine job but the show was over. When we each received $5 for playing the gig, I was hooked. Besides, for the same pay, it sure beat mowing yards on the weekends.

  By this time, I’d been hanging around Prof Erny’s so much that they hired me to work during the summer to help out with a little bit of everything in the store. I loved it because it was exciting to be involved with anything related to music, including the buzz of activity with selling albums, sound systems of the day (“stereos”), tape recorders, sheet music, school band instruments, accessories, amplifiers and, of course, all those guitars. An older kid, Raymond Decou, also worked there and he turned me on to Chet Atkins and taught me how to fingerpick Chet-style. That was HUGE. It was the beginning of my embracing the concept of playing multiple parts — melody, rhythm and bass patterns — simultaneously. That inspired me to want find out who all else was “out there” that I needed to get hip to. With my worker discount at the store as a resource, I bought lots of albums and tapes and listened to Wes Montgomery, Johnny Smith, Howard Roberts, Carlos Montoya, Andrés Segovia, Carl Perkins, Stephen Stills and Neil Young in Buffalo Springfield, Michael Bloomfield, Eric Clapton in Cream and many others. I heard B.B. King live at Leo’s Rendevous in New Iberia (they didn’t even check my ID) and Jimi Hendrix in concert at Independence Hall in Baton Rouge. Then I discovered the sound of slide guitar on many of the old Delta blues albums including those by my favorite, Robert Johnson. As I got into the Delta players, I realized they sang story songs with two distinct voices. They had their singing voice and they had their guitar voice. Especially with the slide, they could create different sounds that would embellish the lyrics of the songs. I was totally blown away by this “new” sound I was just discovering from the ancient 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, so I began to tackle it head on. With a metal slide on the little finger of my left hand (I would later switch to glass), I got the idea to incorporate the Chet Atkins fingerpicking approach with my right hand. That really set me on the path that would eventually lead me to developing a sound and voice of my own.

  In spite of the wear and tear of all these years of traveling, playing shows and dealing with the ups and downs of the music business, I admit that I am still enthralled with the magic I first felt with this instrument. For me, what I love most about the guitar is its unlimited potential for expressing emotion regardless of style or musical genre. And, especially amped up, the sky is the limit, too, for creating sounds that can capture the imagination, stir the soul and turn you into a kid all over again. For that and for my family’s support and all who have helped me along the way, I am most grateful.

  Lurrie Bell

  Chicago blues guitarist Lurrie Bell, the son of renowned blues harmonica player Carey Bell, performed with Big Walter Horton, Eddie Taylor, Willie Dixon and Bell’s cousin Eddy Clearwater before he joined Koko Taylor’s Blues Machine. Lurrie, who has recorded over forty albums during the course of his career, has been honored as a top Chicago blues musician by the Chicago Reader.

  I was about six or seven years old when I picked up the guitar for the first time and taught myself to play the blues during my father’s rehearsals on the west side of Chicago. The first song I wanted to learn was a Jimmy Reed song that I played on a Fender guitar. I moved down South at that age to my dad’s hometown in Macon, Mississippi, for two or three years and, after that, I moved to Alabama to live with my grandparents at the age of seven or eight. At that time, I started attending church as an active member, and they had guitars there, too, which I played, performed and jammed on. But the first guitar I can say I ever truly owned was one that my father sent me through the mail from Chicago to Alabama. It was an acoustic guitar that looked exactly like a Fender. It was not an original Fender but a guitar made out of plastic made to look just like a Fender. I learned how to play in church, and for this reason I played church music back in those days. I wish I had a photo of this guitar but I do not.

  The only instrument I’ve ever played is the guitar. Ever since I could remember, I wanted to learn how to perform and play the guitar because, at an early age, I found out I had the ear for it, especially because I was surrounded by blues music and blues musicians. I grew up listening to guys like Eddie Taylor and Roy Lee Johnson, Joe Harper and, of course, my father, Carey Bell. I always loved the blues and what my dad did back in the day because he was a blues entertainer who played with people like Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters way back before I was even born. When I was around the blues cats, I wanted to be a blues musician also! When I was living down in Lisbon, Alabama, I was playing the blues back in those days, but the message was about gospel — about religion. I always was around the blues cats so that’s what I do these days — perform and play blues for a living.

  What I like best about the guitar is the sound you can get out it. I can play guitar and discover a particular tone that I am looking for that I enjoy listening to. I like the sound of guitar, period. Just playing gives me a certain feeling that I can’t get anywhere else. I also play electric guitar and right now I own a Gibson ES-335, which is what I usually play when entertaining at the clubs. Performing and playing the guitar, period, is a challenge in itself. You learn the guitar by exploring it and experimenting with tone on the instrument, and it teaches you and explains itself to you as best it can. My first performance playing for a public audience was at church in Alabama because I was the musician who officially played an instrument. Any kind of music, when it comes down to gospel music, I basically liked it. Gospel, back in those days, and spirituals, were the choir music. I enjoyed playing the guitar behind choirs and quartets of four singers. The special feeling that I got by playing at one of those sanctified churches, as they used to call them and I imagine they still do, has stayed with me most of my life. When it comes down to blues, it’s similar — gospel and blues are almost related.

  Right now I am sitting down by my Dobro. I just got a new Dobro, and I’ve always admired the sound that comes out of them. The tone you can get out of Dobro is something else, amazing, and I am enjoying exploring it. I have played Dobros on tours, but I’ve never owned one until now. I own about seven or eight guitars because each one has the correct sound I am looking for. Every day I am learning something new whenever I pick up the guitar. To break the story down, they pay the bills!

  One story I can tell you about is my Gibson ES-335 — I’d only had it for a couple years when I found myself onstage in the middle of a performance, jamming on a blues song onstage, when the pick guard fell off. Right in the middle of the per
formance! That is the first and only time that ever happened with a guitar when I was on tour. My guitar looked so good without the pick guard on it that I kept it like it was. I never went in to get it repaired because it made me love playing the guitar more this way. Every time I pick it up if feels so much better to me, and I am playing the guitar now in a way that nobody else has ever played it before. The guitar somehow must have known that I really needed to be playing it this way.

  I’ve been in the music business for over forty years, and I’ve recorded more than forty albums, and I know tons of blues musicians. In other words, I’ve been in the blues world all my life and wouldn’t want to do anything else. I see myself as carrying on the tradition.

  Rory Block

  Rory Block is a blues guitarist who grew up in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village during the ’60s and felt inspired by the folk music scene to learn classical guitar. She left home at fifteen to seek out blues giants Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, Reverend Gary Davis and Son House in order to learn traditional Delta blues. She has won five Blues Music Awards, two for Traditional Blues Female Artist and three for Acoustic Blues Album of the Year.