A few days ago, I read an article about my old bandmate from Winnipeg, Randy Bachman, the co-founder of The Guess Who, and Bachman Turner Overdrive, who was about to auction off his guitar collection.
What made this interesting was that his collection included my “59 Fender Strato Caster.
In the ’50s, Elvis turned me on to guitars, but Buddy Holly, who first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, played the guitar I wanted.
When I asked the folks at Lowe’s Music if they knew what kind of guitar it was, they said it was a Fender Stratocaster and they could have one for me in two weeks.
This news excited me until they told me it would cost $473.00. Now, where the hell was a kid like me gonna come up with that kinda of dough?
Thankfully, Lowes came up with a plan. First, they took my trumpet in on trade and then put me on a $14-a-month payment plan.
A couple of weeks later, when they called to tell me that my guitar had arrived, I could hardly wait to pick it up.
So within the hour, there I was, standing in front of a mirror, strapping on my new Strat, and staring back at me was a “Rock Star.” (See my guitar on top)
Next, I bought a couple of guitar books and spent hours and hours in my bedroom trying to learn a few chords.
After a few days, it became evident that it took much more than dreaming about becoming a “Guitar “Man because, so far, all I had to show for my efforts were bleeding fingers..
A few weeks later, still struggling, I got a surprise phone call from a local singer named Shayne, who invited me to join his singing group, The Devines.
Surprisingly, shortly after I became a Divine, I was on stage in a talent show and I still couldn’t play my guitar, but I looked cool.
Not only did we finish third in the talent show, but we also got booked for a local car club’s dance the following weekend.
Now, what made the car club dance so special was that even though I was unplugged, I became a professional musician that night because they paid us.
Some thirty years later, when I returned to Winnipeg for a big reunion with Neil Young, The Guess Who, BTO, Burton Cummings, and my band, The Jury, I was unplugged again, but that’s another story.
A few years ago, I read an article that said you should discard anything you haven’t used in six months.
Hell, I thought, I hadn’t even seen my guitar in ten years, let alone played it. So, I sold it to Randy Bachman.
The value of a ’59 Strat is all over the place, so it took us a while to determine what we thought was a fair price.
At some point during the negotiations, Randy mentioned that when he opened for Neil Young during a tour, they used to talk about the Winnipeg days, and Neil said, “George had one of the first cool guitars in Winnipeg.” How cool is that?
Unfortunately, Randy is now pissed at me because he didn’t realize that I had my Strat refurbished back in’65, which he claims diminishes the value.
So, like a car, you shouldn’t sell a guitar to a friend either.
*COMMENTS
@IvanBraiker: Congrats, Reg! It is very well done. As one who attempted to promote exactly what you pointed out to the radio early on with text messaging with Hipcricket. Its ability to communicate with the listener and create communities was just lost on most of the operators. The opportunity was there and was too expensive, and it was very sad to have lost that advantage.(2/26/24
Geo: What I never understood, Ivan was as much money as radio used to make, it never wanted to pay for anything, and now nobody wants to pay radio for anything.
@JamesDuvall: George: In the very early 1930s, unemployment was in the 30s percentage of citizens, the country was much more agrarian (so those living on farms were hurting), and most people were at or below the poverty level of 1930. Things were so bad that World War One veterans marched on Washington and camped on The Mall. When they did not disperse and go home, President Hoover sent Generals MacArthur, Patton, and Eisenhower with Army soldiers to remove them by force. Until 1935 or 1936, most people were suffering, especially farmers. John Steinbeck’s novel, “The Grapes of Wrath,” documents what a significant portion of Americans were experiencing. (Geo’s Daily Life-Liners)
Geo: Sad, Jed, but what I find even sadder is the poor folks back then handled their circumstances much better than they do today.
