1975: My guitar teacher/cousin Ray happily playing my first real guitar, a Yamaha acoustic.
1978: Me, right after I purchased my 1978 Stratocaster. I was 15 years old!
1984: Making the transition from rock to country, we added an acoustic guitar to the line-up.
1985: A real classic country band where I learned to play to the original roots artists like Jimmy Rodgers and Hank Williams.
Snapshots of a Musical Evolution
by Chuck Welsh
Photographs are little stands against the flow and march of time, but often they can nod toward the future.
My first memory of a guitar is culled from a black and white photograph, circa 1968. I was about five years old and had fallen asleep on the couch with a miniature toy instrument equipped with four plastic strings. Although the string count was wrong, the shape was unmistakable. It was a tiny dreadnought.
After six months of pleading with my parents and Santa Claus I was finally silenced. Christmas of 1973 brought me a real 3/4 scale, barely tunable, yet serviceable, guitar with steel strings. My little brother is pictured with it under the tree. But, with neither a book nor any guidance, I had to impatiently wait until after the holidays for my mom to find an instructor. Today she has no concrete recollection of how she found him. His name was Mark. He lived only a few miles away in the neighboring school district and knew a few of my cousins, so I was at once comfortable. Lessons were conducted in his bedroom where faded white walls were covered with posters of Peter, Paul, and Mary and a curious guy with a Dutch Boy haircut wearing a huge guitar. It had 12 strings.
Mark was pleasant and patient as my fingers fumbled around the neck. Mastering the etudes and exercises associated with each string, as dictated in Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, built a solid foundation, but siphoned a certain soul out of making music. So, Mark tempered this by showing me a handful of easy chords: A minor, E minor, C major, D major, and G major. The first song he taught me was the Eagles’ “Take It Easy,” which employed all of those chords. A few months later, lack of a reliable ride to his house and his demanding social schedule, ended my time with Mark. But he had fueled a passion.
My cousin Ray was eager to take over the role. He came to my house for the lessons. However, he was not favorably impressed with what he called my “tin can band” little acoustic. He immediately began a campaign for a new guitar. A good report card and Ray’s urging won my dad’s vote. So in the fall of 1974, I was awarded a new Yamaha acoustic.
By January 1975 that curious man from the poster on Mark’s wall had the number one album in the country. John Denver was the darling of radio and television and now had a hold of my musical soul. Overwhelming evidence from my dad’s new Polaroid camera lent support. I am grinning with my wire rim glasses, holding up the Back Home Again album with my Yamaha strapped on. Not a jumbo like Denver’s, but it was the same color with the same pick guard, and of course, only six strings. On it I learned to play E major, F# minor, A, and B—enough to play the title track of the multi-platinum album.
By the summer of 1975 I realized girls were not just different, but interesting in ways I was just beginning to understand. The electric guitars of Foghat, Aerosmith, and ZZ Top held the same appeal. I was hooked. Ray had a Stratocaster, as did Ritchie Blackmore in a full-page image in Circus magazine. I, of course, needed one to play “Smoke on the Water.” I got close. That summer I saved money from cutting grass, and with a little help from Dad, bought what now would be called a Strat knock-off. We called it a Strat copy.
I joined my first band in 1977. Pictures show me in a club with four bandmates. At 15, the other guitarist was the oldest member, except for his 40-year-old vocalist dad. At least that solved the problem of needing a guardian to play a bar. It was an invaluable experience. We were learning our chops on classic tunes by Elvis, Hank Williams, Chuck Berry, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Alice Cooper, The Beatles, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Bachman-Turner Overdrive.
By 1978 I had a real Stratocaster and was leading my own band. The Strat is pictured in every band I was in for the next decade. In the early ’80s it was pop rock: Pat Benatar and Blondie. The rest of the decade found me seriously pursuing music full-time with classic rock and country—Eagles, Alabama, Outlaws, Eric Clapton, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and some original material.
I have a running discourse with a friend and former bandmate over a noteworthy 1984 photograph. He claims it was the morning after a gig. I recall it as the aftermath of a prerecording rehearsal ending at dawn. Which, if either, is correct is just a matter of who might be in the picture. The speculation launches us into tales of playing, memorable gigs, and the aspects of carousing associated with that lifestyle. In the photograph, I am captured on a couch bed with what appears to be someone else next to me under the blankets. If my recollection is correct, it is our drummer. In Glenn’s version, it could be an admirer from the gig in question. As the room is decorated with Stroh’s cans, neither of us are willing to bet on it. But the unmistakable headstock of my ’78 Stratocaster is leaning inches from my feet.
Beginning in 1990 my time was devoted to my family and professing biology. Playing was mostly just to teach the kids. Plus, I did get to arrange for their flute and piano lessons. But in 2006 I began a lunch time jam with two colleagues, a mandolin player and a bassist. Using a secondhand, beat-up Ovation I longed for a high-end acoustic guitar. A six-month search provided an education in tone woods, ending with the purchase of a Taylor GA-7 with a cedar top and a rosewood back and sides. By then the noon jams had breathed life into a working coffee house trio. I was back to my roots playing John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” The Internet guaranteed we could share images and MP3s of live performances. But my 10-year-old son snapped a shot on a cell phone of me napping on the couch, the Taylor face down across my legs. Forty years later and I was still sleeping with my first love.
Chuck Welsh is host of Guitar Gab. Listen for Guitar Gab on your local public radio station or at www.guitargab.org.
