What was your first ever guitar?

[mwcarr]

Solid body Kent with three pick-ups. This was 1963. Finally worked all one summer and got a Guild T-150 ?, not sure about that Guild but it was a huge step up from the Kent.

[mad dog]

Harmony Sovereign acoustic, bought new in NYC in 1965. Remembering it cost 50 bucks. My brother dropped it on the boardwalk at Wildwood NJ two years later. So that was that until guitar number two, a mid 60s SG junior (put me off SGs for decades ...)
MD

[neatomic]

spent time growing up in the shadows of the gretsch factory buildings...so (in my blood)- a used 1961 gretsch anniversary..225$ with case (mid 70's).. sunburst with hilo-trons.. vg shape..i used to polish it like a rare prize..eventually traded with rudy pensa..he had just opened his upstairs shop on 48th st music row in nyc..think i got another gretsch or a fender amp from him

wish i still had the annie

cheers

[skykomishone]

I didn't own a guitar until 1968, and it was an SG Standard. Before that, I played my older brother's guitars, i.e., Stratocaster, Goya classical, and Guild X-500. I eventually migrated to jazz and blues, and couldn't handle the guild's size and feedback, so I bought a new ES175D, in 1972. Still own it. Nicest sounding and playing electric on the planet. I am very greatful that my brother was around to help mentor me musically, and give me unlimited access to his guitars, and Hammond B3. We had a trio, and tried to get that Wes Montgomery/Jimmy Smith vibe. I was lucky and it was awesome. Except setting up and breaking down (my back mainly). The SG Standard was a great guitar back then for me, played through a Twin Reverb with those screaming JBL's. Lord, that was loud.

[lawson-stone]

After the "Tiger" guitar I picked up a basic classical guitar and Frederick Noad's book Playing The Guitar. I'd heard Mason Williams play "Classical Gas" on the Smothers' Brothers with an orchestra, and went nuts. I used Noad to learn the basic notation and finger-style, used the sheet music and record to "Classical Gas" and spent a summer on my grandparents' farm in North Georgia learning to play that. At summer's end, I could play it! But that's ALL I could play...

Picked up a Suzuki Flat-Top (Still have it!) when I was 15 and became a John Denver wanna-be coffee house singer back in the "Folk Music Scare of the '70's" (when it almost caught on!). For Christmas that same year my dad got me a bright red Hagstrom 3 pickup solid-body that was upholstered in red plastic and had a cream-colored plastic front plate. He also got me a Sears-and-Roebuck tube amp with tremolo, reverb, and one 12" speaker. I was "it."

Later a Ventura 12-string that looked like a Gibson Hummingbird knock-off entered the stable... the folk/folk-rock singer thing was what I was doing, but always remembered "Classical Gas" and how much I just loved playing the guitar for itself, not for an accompaniment.

I heard on television one of the network orchestras, which had a guitarist, might have been Al Caiola (?) and my dad said I kinda went nuts... but I never knew what he played was "jazz."

It wasn't until about 1990 when I was in my 30's that I discovered Joe Pass and jazz guitar. From that point on, it has been an obsession.

[Captain Caravelle]

I gotta say guys.....all these old names are totally taking me back. It's awesome to hear them again.

Just don't say St George SG and I'll be fine.

[Tom Karol]

A brand new 1960 $24 Stella (made by Harmony) mahogany(?) flattop with a tailpiece - my parents traded my Grandfather's 1923 Vega White Lady tenor banjo for it (or so I've been told) - ouch! It was soon upgraded to a $52 Harmony Broadway non-cutaway archtop (plywood, I guess). Later, I put a monkey-on-a-stick DeArmond on it and played it through my Dad's HiFi.

[neatomic]

so cool to read these stories..when guitars were such a towering & powerful mystery...no instant answers via internet...not many books or mags...knowledge was all esoteric word of mouth...why kids tried to actually plug their "electric" guitars into the wall socket...or threw away their fuzz pedal when it didn't work (not knowing they just had to change the battery!)...or the whole band plugged in a single amp..inc vocals...and getting ZZZzzzapped for their trouble

what am i talkin about!?? thank heavens for jazzguitar.be...hahaha

cheers

[entresz]

I had a 1970's "Bolero" brand flat top acoustic that my grandparents gave me. It was made in Japan, had a fret board made of some wood that I can't identify (far lighter than rosewood, but definitely not maple), and was all plywood. I remember the top was caving in in places, and the strings were pulling the bridge high, the action was about an inch at the 12th fret. I kind of wish I still had it, just for sentimental reasons.

I thought that is how a normal guitar played, so I just stuck with it. It wasn't until I was given my first electric guitar, a strat copy that I realised how hard to play that old guitar was.

[zephyrregent]

An $8 Stella acoustic flattop in 1966 with high action that hurt. Later I added some sort of pickup that came in a box. After awhile I got a Fender Mustang with buzzy frets. Fortunately I had use of my drummer's brother's late 1950's Gibson Les Paul with TV finish until 1970. I could have bought it then for $200 but wanted to get into the world of jazz and archtop guitars.

[Skip Ellis]

1936 Martin 0-17 flat top inherited from an uncle when I was 14.

[2bornot2bop]

A 1979, or so Gibson ES175 w/a CC pickup. Acquired in '93 for $1200. After taking a few lessons locally, having begun piano 4 years earlier I had too much on my plate. Sold that guitar for the price of purchase 2 years later. I had no idea that guitar would be worth 3 times its purchase price today, or I'd have kept it.

[neatomic]

A 1979, or so Gibson ES175 w/a CC pickup.

that's quite a nice learner!!!



hah

cheers

[Engine Swap]

Sometime in the mid-1970s, my mom dragged a vintage Harmony from a garage sale. She paid $2.

I started playing around 1984 and dragged it off to college.

I still have it (second from left), but the neck joint gave up and needs to be reset.

[RonD]

Very first was a Silvertone acoustic from a catalog store. 1963. $13.95 Cdn. It had a red, white and blue rope for a strap and a mimeographed copy of the E-Z Guitar Method!
Two years later, I worked my but off, for six weeks, at Army Cadet camp, for the $40 to buy my first electric.
Harmony Bobcat... kinda like this! Ahh, memories!

Reversed the strings and played it upside down for the next five years!

[Woody Sound]

Was in the mid-late 60's. Stella Harmony flattop. In sunburst! Picked it out off the wall in the local music shop.

[EllenGtrGrl]

I gotta say guys.....all these old names are totally taking me back. It's awesome to hear them again.

Just don't say St George SG and I'll be fine.

What about a Memphis, Melody Maker copy (my first electric)?

[jazz.fred]

My first "real guitar" was a Harmony Sovereign acoustic that my parents gave me in 1964 or '65.

[rlrhett]

A student grade classical guitar from "Casa Musical Remolino, Calle Toledo 9, Madrid 12". Being 12 myself, I hated it. I wanted a Strat! Eventually I came to appreciate what my Mother had gotten for me. I am told now that Casa Musical Remolino was a much beloved institution until recently when it closed its doors. Sadly, I haven't been to Madrid in nearly 20 years, so I wouldn't know for sure.

[Thumpalumpacus]

lol, I remember buying strings at a Rexall too. Yes, they were BDs ... barbed-wire dogs.

[Greentone]

I gotta say guys.....all these old names are totally taking me back. It's awesome to hear them again.

Just don't say St George SG and I'll be fine.

First drum set was St. George.

[Greentone]

lol, I remember buying strings at a Rexall too. Yes, they were BDs ... barbed-wire dogs.

They came in the same kind of jar you'd get pickled eggs in. Only strings available for miles.

[Doctor Jeff]

Mine was either a Teisco or possibly a Kay Silvertone from about 1967. Actually, my first was a 3/4 size no-name guitar which my mom still has in a closet at her home. But a year or so later I got a real guitar, which unfortunately my parents got rid of years ago.

They probably would have gotten it from Sears or JC Penneys or possibly Montgomery Wards (on layaway), or they might have made the trek over to Joe Chambers Music World--a local institution in Chattanooga, where I took lessons for 2 years.

I remember it had a strat-style offset body, offset headstock, tremolo, and a couple of knobs and maybe a switch or 2. It was a burst. This Teisco seems to come closest to my memory of it.



After 2 years of lessons and fighting with the poor playability of the guitar, I gave it up (for awhile) for scouting and swim team.

Surprisingly, I have not come across any pictures of me with that guitar.

[Woody Sound]

My first in-person exposure to an electric guitar was at a friend-of-a-friend's house in elementary school. It was (now I realize) a really cheap make, I remember it had FOUR pickups and a bunch of switches. The thing I really remember was that it had a clutch. That's what the kid call the trem bar. "The Clutch"

[Drumbler]

My older sister's no-name acoustic.

It was a terrible guitar.

I remember trying to learn to play the F major bar chord on it. Impossible as the action was a mile high.