Nobody knows you......

A few weeks ago, I posted on Facebook:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owOGDEJr3ts (Eric Clapton's Signe, the first song on the 1992 Unplugged CD) and posted with it "a hard song to learn....but I'll get it figured out:"
Varda Epstein ask "You know how to play guitar and I didn't know".  My answer to her was it didn't come up much and that "I've been playing guitar on and off since I was 11 years old"...more off than on over the years.

Playing Guitar is like riding a bike...you never truly forget but you do lose the sharpness you once played with.  There was one song on Eric Clapton's Unplugged CD that I always liked. "Nobody knows you when your down and out" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aDykZEATzk  I have always liked music that speaks about the human condition and that song speaks volumes about the human condition.  I've always wanted to learn that song but in the 21 years since that CD came out, I've just never taken the time to do it.  I used to play guitar by ear.  I played pretty much anything I wanted without looking at music.  I remember sitting in my room at age 15 in the dark, playing something from John Denver and not missing a note...those days are long gone.  I've watched Eric's unplugged DVD and he played with such ease and he never misses note.  I envy his talent.  I'll never play that good ever again but now that the callouses are back on my left finger tips, I play a little every day just to keep my fingers in good shape. It was very painful to play enough to get callouses again. I don't think I want to lose those.

I learned to play guitar in the summer of 1974, using a black Les Paul copy without the aid of an amplifier. My hair was a great deal longer than it is now and my parent's didn't have central air conditioning at the time. I played a good bit until I got married in 1982. At that point all my money went to my new family.  I purchased a great many guitars over the years. a 12 string guitar for a great price because the neck was warped. I also purchased another Gibson Les Paul copy from J.C. Penny's. I lived in Fairbanks/North Pole AK at the time. While speaking with the J.C. Penny's catalog customer service person, I told the woman my name was Johnny Massengill and I lived in North Pole AK, Zip Code 99702. She said "Come on [so and so] stop joking with me"....and I had to break it to her that YES, I was Johnny Massengill, Airman First Class in the U.S.A.F. and that I really did live in North Pole AK and I did want the Sunburst orange Les Paul copy that was in the Christmas Catalog....she was a bit "gobsmacked" on the other end of the phone. I've never hear ANYONE apologize so much as that poor woman from J.C. Penny's did.  The guitar was beautiful but beauty doesn't make a guitar sound good.  It would seem that my Sunburst orange Les Paul copy wasn't made to exacting standards and the neck was out of tune with itself because the frets were not spaced as they should have been.  I could never get it in tune.  In 1987, when I moved to SC, I purchased an Aria Acoustic Guitar from Shaw Gate Pawn shop, right outside the front gate of Shaw AFB. It is still there and I got to be pretty good friends with the owners in the years that I lived in Sumter, SC. Someplace along the line I got a Fender Squire electric guitar. It is Fender's cheaper copy of their own Stratocaster, Much like the Epiphone Les Paul is a cheaper copy of Gibson's own Les Paul.  Gibson owns Epiphone so they get to make the cheaper versions of the Les Paul.

I do believe the Fender Squire and the Sunburst orange Les Paul copy both got taken to the pawn shop when money got tight. The Aria almost met the same fate but I got talked out of giving that guitar up.  It was hard to see them go out of my hand to the pawn shop but I needed the money SO badly at the time.

The Aria Acoustic Guitar is still with me. It looks like its been hit on the back of the neck with a hammer and it isn't pretty but it is one of the best playing Guitars I've ever played.  I let my Dad have it for a few months and he gave it back to me and it will stay with me until I'm in the ground. I also have a very nice copy of a round back Ovation (look up the guitar Melissa Etheridge plays.) and it plays very well and is a very comfortable guitar to hold and play.  I also have a Johnson Acoustic Guitar that I keep in the car for those days when I just need to get away from real life for a few seconds

I can think of only one guitar that I lack. A real Gibson Les Paul. I'm not sure why an old guy like me needs 4 guitars but I made myself a promise when I went in the Air Force that one day I would have a Gibson Les Paul. It hasn't happened yet but I'll get there.....

I first played a real Gibson Les Paul at Lynn's Guitars on Broadway in Knoxville in the mid 70's. It was a 1952 model Les Paul and it had had a hard life. It had nicks out of the paint and it didn't look good at all, but it PLAYED like a dream.  I've never played another guitar that fit my hands quite so good or maybe my old mind remembers it better than it really was.....  Today, in good condition that 1952 Gold Top Les Paul would pull down between $18,000 - $20,000

No more copies for me.  If I shell out the cash for another Les Paul it will be a true Gibson...

One day before they put me in the ground....one day.

J.