What Made you Pick up a Guitar?

[Mr. C.O. Jones]

Funny in my case stop smoking weed is what made me wanna play.

When I was a Pothead I told myself the whole time: nah, you are not capable, let the pros do it. Just chill and listen.

And I think the yellow submarine movie I whatched when I was maybe 7 years old could be a reason. Later Aerosmith, Zepp, Slash, Nirvana, Doors and so on....and of course some german punk bands. And a hippie teacher we had, I remember singing let it be with the whole class, one of the few things I enjoyed at school.

[milod]

Well, I may be showing my age here...

 

Dad had a beat up old - Stella, I think - guitar in the attic I discovered as soon as I was old enough to climb up there. Unplayable, but it got me thinking about music a little differently.

 

Mom started me on piano when I was 4. But all told, I didn't care for having to play "notes" because I wanted to play "music." Getting into trumpet in fourth grade helped, but you hadda be in a band and I had mixed emotions on that. Still, at 12, I swore I'd never go to a dance unless I was playing in the band. That was well prior to the Beatles.

 

Thing is, as music made the switch from big bands to combos in the '50s, and the guitar increasingly came to the fore, I saw an instrument that could do anything and everything. Oddly my first rock band? I was playing trumpet; again pre-Beatle.

 

So... after getting my first guitar the summer of '63 en route to college, it mostly was folkie material with as much jazz/pop as I could figure out on my own, then a bit of Flamenco and then a little classical. Didn't do any "rock" except messing with a one-guitar version of Link Wray's "Rumble" until I was recruited into a rock band the late fall of '65 after doing a "folk festival" gig with "San Francisco Blues."

 

I guess to this day I'm not tied to any genre or style other than doing my own thing with songs I like. Nowadays almost inevitably it's variations of fingerpicking my own interpretations of songs, occasionally "old time" sorts of flatpicking.

 

Another point about being raised musically in the '50s: I think the fact that a lotta arrangements were made on "the" songs of the day affected how I look at pieces I like - as opposed to trying to get something note-for-note that somebody else did. There are both advantages and disadvantages to that if you're gonna play for money...

 

m

[fromnabulax]

For me it was sitting in front of the old Sylvania console and being in awe of Roy Rogers. Not the blues dude, but the cowboy. He and Dale Evans. I still listen toma lot of the original Sons Of The Pioneers.

 

When my mom was still alive she used to tell me that i would have to watch Les Paul in the afternoon or I wouldn't go to sleep. I still listen to a lot of Les as well.

 

By the time I hit the early 1960s I was already fascinated by some of the folk boom thanks to a beatnik aunt.

 

Then with 1964 it was all George Harrison.

 

I've certainly had many guitar heroes and influences since, but Roy, Les and George got me hooked for life.

[charlie brown]

"The DEVIL, made me Do it!"

 

 

 

CB

[4Hayden]

How did a female singer make you want to play guitar?

She had guitar players behind her and backing her up , view looked good to me

[AndyK]

This guy - Glenn Kaiser of Resurrection Band. Still one of my favourite guitarists.