I started playing "lap steel" when I was 7 (in 1945.) I was a country bumpkin and loved Hank Snow, Hank Williams, Hank Thompson, and continued down that "country" path until I was about 15, when I discovered that it was indeed possible for a song to have more than three chords... Took me awhile...
I joined the high school dance band and started playing a conventional electric guitar (not in that order, though), a new Gibson ES125.
Got really into what they called "progresive jazz" at that time, and into drag racing about the same time, and never got past either one.
I have a lot of CD's but not much beyond jazz.... though I do love some of the Blues players (Howard and the White Boys' version of "Got My Mojo Workin" is GREAT, I think!), and Gatemouth Brown's
original version of "Okey Dokey Stomp" is probably the best guitar solo I've ever heard...
I dig Steely Dan a lot, too.... got nearly everything they ever recorded, but most of the listening I did during my formative years was to sax players, like Sonny Stitt, early John Coltrane (but, not the later, modal stuff), Jackie McLean, and Red Prysock (who is really an R & B player... not actually jazz, but I love what he does!!!)
Currently, I listen mostly to an L-A based guitarist named Ron Eschete', who plays mostly in a trio setting, with an electric bass player and drummer. Ron has some you-tube offerings, as does his bassist, Todd Johnson. Ron plays 7-string, and Todd plays a 6-string elecric bass... They manage to make 3 pieces sound like 4... The you-tube videos demonstrate how they do that; it's mainly what Todd does, and it's amazing, I think.
I have just two guitars, a Fender Musicmaster short-scale solid body guitar I bought in 1966, and an Epiphone Zephyr (2006 model) that is actually a cheap knockoff clone of a Gibson ES175. It's not a bad guitar, but I'm sure the original Gibson would make it look like a piece of junk... It plays well, though and sounds okay, so I guess I shouldn't bad-mouth it; it's the only acoustic guitar I've owned since 1962.
I have a 1993 Fender Blues Deluxe amp that I play these two through. It's a reissue/clone of the tube amps of the '50s, with the same "look" of a '50s Fender amp, and works especially well, I think, with the solid body Musicmaster.
I play (at) bass, too, and own a 1974 Fender Mustang short scale bass, and a 2003 "Mexican" Fender Precision bass. The amp I bought for these two is a Hartke "Kickback 15", with a single 15" speaker that has some sort of metallic aspect to it; not sure exactly what... something to do with the speaker. It sounds pretty good for my purposes, with either bass... can't tell much difference between them.
I play mostly in small groups that play jazz standards of the '40s, '50s, and '60s.... and we don't usually get too loud. Small clubs are our staple, although we don't play for a living; just as a hobby that pays a little money.
I'd LOVE to play in a
LOUD blues band sometime.... just never get the chance.
Attached are a couple of pictures of some of my junk, and one of our group playing at the Afterthought, a sometimes-jazz club in Little Rock (Arkansas.)
Music is ALMOST as much fun as drag racing my Mopar... but, not quite!8)
Bill, in Conway, AR
