Music in surprising places - my first electric guitar

I love playing to things with strings. I love listening to things with strings. From a player's point of view guitar and bass are at the top of my list. From a listener's point of view, guitar and bass are up there, followed closely by the cello and bass violin. (I don't own a cello... I've thought about it a hundred times, though. They're so wonderful... maybe someday...)

An early musician's experience for me came from a huge desire to sing the music in my soul... I had dreams of music (still do). I just needed an outlet. I just needed the instrument(s) to let it all out.

Then there was the time I was about fourteen: I was walking home from downtown on a Saturday. I'm not sure why, but I ducked in to the local pawn shop. To my amazement, there was an actual electric guitar for sale at $25. I had some birthday money and some paper-route money. The guitar came home with me.

It was glorious. It was in bad shape. It was a dream come true. It was a cheap Silvertone with black rusted strings. It was perfect. I didn't have an amplifier. I was in music heaven.

The Silvertone opened doors in my mind. I cleaned it up, fixed it, restrung it, and played it just about every day. It was my little music-soul-playing device. And it couldn't have been sweeter.