My dad never played, but he loved music. He had a huge collection of classical and jazz music that he played all the time, there was always music in the house.

I first really wanted to play myself when I saw the Beatles on the Sullivan show back in '64, I was 10 at the time. Bugged my parents for a guitar, and they got me this $10 acoustic from the sears catalog for Christmas. It was unplayable but I didn't know that at the time, I spent many hours struggling with it before I came to the conclusion that I didn't have what it took to be a guitarist.

So, I got into piano instead, took classical lessons for a few years but also had no problem picking up the pop songs of the day by ear. Also played Tuba in the school band for a couple of years :P

Then when I was 15 a friend of mine got an electric guitar and showed me a few things, I was able to play the house of the rising sun arpeggios (very badly!) after a week or two.
So I got my own electric, a Silvertone, and by the time I was 16 I was in a band playing gigs. Back then (late 60s, early 70s) live music was king, quite easy to get gigs.

The rest is history I guess, been playing guitar ever since.

Dave

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