Originally Posted by
sgcim
Yeah, that guitar has 88 years of playing history on it.
My father bought it from his best friend, Duke, who was a more of an Eddie Lang type of player, and gigged with it all over NYC in the 30s.Duke was the guy who designed the New Yorker Art Deco Logo on the Headstock of John's New Yorkers
My father was a 4/4 man and played all types of gigs from rent parties to Toots Shor's.
Whenever he had to play a solo, he'd have to bring it up to the mic, and play through it to be heard over the band.
He got drafted and went to Okinawa, so his brother, my Uncle Tony, used it to get out of being sent overseas, and played in Army bands all over the country at different Army bases.
He could barely play, but somehow faked it well enough from learning a few chords from my father to get away with it.
Some pro vibes player caught on to him, but didn't say anything.
After the war, my father got married, and had to get a day gig (he dropped out of school in the 7th grade to go to airplane mechanics school, but wound up doing a bunch of other jobs).
I discovered it during the late 60s, and taught myself how to play it using a Beatles songbook/ I could read a little cause I played clarinet in school.
My father bought a Dearmond RC 1000 and I used to jam with my father on standards like Sweet Sue and Bye Bye Blues. He played 4/4 rhythm on an old Gibson that he had with fake diamonds on it's front,and sang, and I'd solo on the changes on the D'A. He had one of the old Red Fake Books number one, and he'd sing all of the melodies in it, and I would have to play the melodies he sang on the D'A. I think that he was trying to give me ear training, and he'd yell at me if I didn't play the note he sang.
I started a little rock band using the D'A through an old Fender Tremolux I got for free somewhere. I never used distortion and rock vibrato back then, so I was like some 8th grade little old man playing Who songs and Moody Blues tunes on a D'A. The D'A got a good blues sound on stuff we did by The Blues Project , Ten Years After, etc.. I took the D'A everywhere, and never worried about it being stolen. All people cared about were Les Pauls and Strats back then.
My father found me a teacher, because I wanted to learn how to play like all the guitarists on the Great Guitars of Jazz LP he had on Verve that featured Kenny Burrell, Tal Farlow Herb Ellis, Howard Roberts, Wes Montgomery, Barney Kessel and Oscar Moore.
I started playing weddings when I was sixteen years old, and took the D'A on all those gigs with a PV Vintage Amp with two SRO EV speakers that gave a sax player a hernia when he tried to lift it over grass because the wheels wouldn't work. Piano players went nuts over the sound of the D'A playing chord melodies, cause it sounded like a little orchestra through that amp, even though what I was playing was not as hip as their arrangements.
I did shows with the D'A with all types of singers at a local theater, like Eddie Fisher, Sandler and Young, Mitzi Gaynor, The Tom Jones touring show, The Englebert Humperdinck touring show, Melba Moore, Sister Sledge, Jerry Vale, Al Martino, and many others.
At some point I realized I had to have a more versatile guitar to play rock stuff, so I bought a used Barney Kessel to play shows like "Hair".
I only used the D'A to play jazz gigs like one I did with Clark Terry, who went crazy over the sound of the D'A.
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Magma Flat Phosphor Bronze 12-54
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