guitars

Beechwood Images

As a youngster growing up in a mining valley in South Wales in the1960's, I was seduced, as were so many others, by the sounds and images of pop music, none more potent, to me, than the sight and sound of "The Shadows" This is the cover of their first album. Mock ye not the sweaters or the price tag dangling from the recently borrowed Telecaster, or indeed, a couple of slightly dodgy "filler" tracks. This was it!

Hank Marvin, lead, Stratocaster; Bruce Welch, rhythm, Telecaster (acoustic on recordings); Jet Harris, Precision Bass and Tony Meehan, Drums. It was all their fault. The combination of rhythmic drive and melody in the music and the futuristic appeal of those Fender Instruments was irresistable; I wanted to play the guitar. Consider; a Fender Stratocaster back in 1962 cost about £160 - £170 at a time when a working man's wage was about ten to twelve pounds a week. Once we started to play, my friend Bob and I would take the train to Cardiff on a Saturday and loiter in Cranes, callow youths surrounded by wonder. Occasionally, high class players would pop in, try the latest guitars and chat with the proprietor. If we were feeling cheeky we would sit down, with permission, and be allowed to play a high quality guitar - a £200 guitar on 25p a week pocket money? It was magic.

This is my first guitar, a Tatra made in Czeckoslovakia. It was bought in Joe Greggs music shop on ‘Pandy Square and cost my parents £10.00 on the “Never-Never” - Hire Purchase. These guitars were made in Czeckoslovakia and were good beginers / intermediate instruments; I was probably about 14 years old. I learnt my chords, bought a Carcassi tutor and learnt to sight read and play basic classical guitar. It went with me to university and later to London. I still have this precious 60 year old guitar in its original soft case, (The laminated spruce top bears the scars of my plectrum attack as I struggled to learn "It’s All Over Now")

Musical Adventures Guitars (Part 1)

My first solid electric guitar, a Gibson “The Paul” . By this time I was working and living in London and saw this in a classified advertisement in Ariel, the BBC staff newspaper. A trip to Hampstead and the deal was done. A cut-down Les Paul with a walnut body and ebony fingerboard this was my first experience of a fine guitar. My inexperience was apparent when I found it needed a pretty drastic fret-dress and set-up to make it play well. A nice guitar but I would never sound like Hank Marvin, so I part exchanged it for......

....a Fender Jazzmaster. Don't ask me why, but I wanted to be a bit different and not play a Stratocaster. This was a very nice guitar but seemed a little "old-fashioned" and did not, at that time, have the pose or the twang. I sold it to my Brother and bought....

.....another Gibson, a semi-acoustic ES (Electric Spanish) 335. I have no idea why I bought this; I was taken with the quality of Gibson Guitars as opposed to Fender which I felt was rather variable in the early 1980's; there were dark mutterings of Pre and Post-CBS standards of manufacture. This was a lovely guitar but I did not play like B B King at all so I took it to Peter Cook Guitars in Hanwell and part-exchanged it for a .......

.....Gibson ES 175. A beautiful jazz guitar, but Rock and Roll called, I was never,ever going to be Barney Kessel or Joe Pass so I got a good price from a private buyer, took the bus to Hanwell and saw a.........

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