Happy 30th Anniversary To Me

I can't believe that I was remiss in remembering the date, but this summer marks the 30th anniversary of when I started playing the guitar.  

If you've read previous posts, you already know the story of how seeing Ann and Nancy Wilson's group "Heart" in concert was the epiphany that caused me to want to learn to play.  Actually, there's a little more to the story.  It started about a year earlier.  My Dad played the piano and organ, and some friends would come over to our house and their son played the guitar and he would play along with Dad.  Well, being an only child and having a jealous steak in me a mile wide, it didn't set well with me.  I played the drums, and you just couldn't get a good groove going with the organ and drums.  So after being subjected to our friend Rodney getting to play along with Dad, that summer when I saw Nancy Wilson playing the guitar, I decided to do something about it.  As soon as we got home from that vacation trip, I got out Dad's guitar and the a "Country Hits of the 70's" music book and using the chord diagrams I taught myself to play.  The first song I learned to play was approrpriately enough  Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man."  I was hooked. 

The drums fell by the wayside, and I started taking guitar lessons.  At first, I took classical guitar.  I learned how to play the awesome flaminco "Maleguena" and then jumped right into rock and roll and some heavy metal.  All in all, I took lessons for about 7 years, never once getting bored with it.  Nancy Wilson was my new idol, and I set out to learn every song that Heart ever recorded.

The years went by, and work and college got in the way and my music got moved to the back burner a few times.  But I never lost my love of the guitar.  I've got 5 guitars and one bass guitar in my collection, and in a couple of days, I hope to be adding one more guitar to my collection.  When we're in Memphis, we'll be visiting the Gibson Guitar Factory, and I hope to bring back a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar. 

I'd love to write a few more paragraphs to you all, but while I'm enjoying my vacation days off, I think I'll go to the living room and dust off one of the cases and pull out a guitar and play a bit.  Any requests?