Too young to fall in love

[Jerry K]

A while back I was at Music Villa in Bozeman and they had a Robert Johnson L-1 hanging on the wall. I had been itching to try one of these for some time, as I am very fond of smaller guitars. It's amazing how much music can come out of little boxes like L-00's. But anyway I had never actually played one of these so I was pretty happy to try. The guitar was still untuned! It must have just got there from the factory. Naturally I tuned it up and played it for some time. Eventually I just had to put it down and walk away, because it is impossible to evaluate a brand spanking new guitar that has just been tuned up for the first time since the final checks at the factory. It has to sit tuned up overnight, heck days, really, before you can tell what it's going to sound like. The finish was barely dry on that one but I have noticed that any guitar that I have had shipped to me generally takes a day or two before it can realistically be evaluated. New guitars that haven't been sitting in a showroom also sound quite different after only a few hours of playing.