The love of Playing Guitar: That's a Smokin' Guitar

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

That's a Smokin' Guitar

This is one of those what-do-these-people-have-in-common questions: Lightnin' Hopkins, Buddy Guy, Roy Clark,

Charlie Christian, Hound Dog Taylor, Carl Perkins and Jimi Hendrix.

It's not just that they are famous guitarists. They all started out playing guitars fashioned from cigar boxes and all are in the Cigar Box Guitar Hall of Fame. Since I'm starting out with a considerably more sophisticated guitar, I guess that puts me way ahead of them.

After you've visited the Martin guitar factory in Nazareth, Pa., (see the I Come From a Short Line of Luthiers post below), you can take the 110-mile ride down to York, Pa., to check out the Cigar Box Guitar Museum and learn all about the subculture of cigar box guitars, which, if Google is any indication, is pretty lively.

I'm currently hard at work at making a wah-wah pedal out of a Marlboro box.

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Talk out your guitar

"The one I've got in my hand at any particular time."
— Keith Richards on his favorite guitar

"Sometimes you want to give up the guitar, you'll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you're gonna be rewarded."
— Jimi Hendrix

"No matter how long you play guitar, there's always something else to learn ...
"I always liked the idea of the guitar because cowboys played the guitar."
— Tom Petty

"About 10 years ago I knew three chords on the guitar. Now, in 1982, I know three chords on the guitar."
— Freddie Mercury

"Some people think they're just pieces of wood."
— Stevie Ray Vaughan

"Musically, I am still hooked and just hypnotized by the sound of the guitar itself. I mean, a guitar sounds good if you drop it on the floor."
— Leo Kottke

"I sang because it was my ticket to getting to play the guitar. To this day, if I had my preference, I'd be a guitar player in some singer's band."
— Merle Haggard

"I’ve deliberately left certain things vague about the guitar because I like the primitive aspect of the way I play and think about the guitar ... I just start to play and hope for the best."
— Elvis Costello

"Guitar playing is a release, liberation. Put simply, it is freedom."
— W.C. Handy

"I don't play a lot of fancy guitar. I don't want to play it. The kind of guitar I want to play is mean, mean licks."
— John Lee Hooker

"I'd think learning to play the guitar would be very confusing for sighted people."
— Doc Watson

"Elmore James only knew one lick but you had the feeling that he meant it."
— Frank Zappa

"When I first started playing guitar when I was 12, I just never stopped."
— Robert Cray

"I began to learn a lot of chords and rhythms. It was a bit boring at the time but came in very handy later on."
— Alvin Lee

"My first love was the sound of a guitar."
— Boz Scaggs

"A friend of mine ... came up one day with an old guitar. I don't know where he got it, I don't know how long he'd had it but he knew about two chords on it. He proceeded to teach them to me and then we proceeded to go crazy over music."
— Charlie Daniels

"The guitar obsession started for me at a very young age -- before I could even wrap my hand around the neck. But I knew that's what I wanted to do."
— Robbie Robertson

"A man can't have too many guitars or shotguns."
— Robert Earl Keen, who has about 25 of each

"I took the guitar with me to the bathroom. Everywhere I went, I played it — because I loved it."
— Chet Atkins

"I got my first guitar at age 7 and never laid it down. Mama taught me G, C and D and it was off to the races, son!"
— Jerry Reed

"When I sit down and play the guitar, I'm 20 years old again."
— J.J. Cale

"I'm really very embarrassed about my guitar playing, in one way, because it's very poor. I can never move but I can make a guitar speak."
— John Lennon

“I am very primitive in my guitar style. Frankly, I need some new tricks.”
— John Hiatt on his plans to take guitar lessons in 2009

"The guitar is the easiest instrument to play and the hardest to play well."
— Andres Segovia

"I can only play six chords on the guitar."
— Patti Smith

“The intrinsic personality of the instrument transcends genre. The guitar, by its nature, is filled with personality and imperfections that all players share.”
— Jorma Kaukonen

"Discovering the guitar is like finding a new continent that exists within your fingertips."
— Will Hodgkinson in "Guitar Man"

"When you play the guitar, you don't have to say nothing. The girls would say something to you."
— Buddy Guy

"When I walk on stage the guitar is just sitting there and it says, 'Play me.' That's my whole thing."
— Stephen Stills

"The first time I ever saw him play I was made to understand / The music may start way down in your heart / But it's got to come out of your hand."
— Jon Dee Graham in the song "Jesse Taylor"

"The guitar is a really weird, primitive instrument."
— Ry Cooder

"I wanted to learn how to do everything a person could do on a guitar. Of course, that was impossible."
— David Bromberg

"My chosen instrument is guitar and, fortunately, I'm able to muddle through that. I can play guitar to the point where I can express myself artistically."
— Joe Perry

"You don’t need talent, you don’t need rhythm, I can teach you guitar ... What I’m trying to say is this is easy and anyone can jam with me and have some fun."
— Nils Lofgren, E Street Band guitarist

"The thing about guitar players is we're all like a brotherhood or sisterhood. We don't care if you're great, good, bad, in between or whatever. As long as you love it, then we're all going to help each other."
— Tommy Emmanuel

"Pain or romance. That’s what I do with the guitar. I don’t do scales. I either make it sound like it’s in pain or in love."

— Dick Dale

"I don't read music. I don't write it. So I wander around on the guitar until something starts to present itself."
— James Taylor

"The two of us even look alike. My musician pals haven't carved and written their names on me the way they have on Trigger but we're both pretty bruised and battered."
— Willie Nelson in his book "The Tao of Willie"

"An uncle of mine emigrated to Canada and couldn't take his guitar with him. When I found it in the attic, I'd found a friend for life."

— Sting

"I have a guitar made out of a 2x4 that I bought in Cleveland. You know, in Iraq, you can't have a guitar in the window of a music store because it's too sexy. You know, the curves. so I could go over there with these 2x4 guitars and really take the country by storm."

— Tom Waits

"There’s so much that can be done on the guitar. And that’s what is so good about the guitar — everyone can really enjoy themselves on it and have a good time, which is what it’s all about. Right?"
— Jimmy Page

"If I look like a good guitar player it's because that's my whole thing — to look like I'm playing the guitar — but really I'm not."
— Pete Townshend in 1968

"Once I found the guitar, I had the key to the highway."
— Bruce Springsteen

"To me a guitar is kind of like a woman. You don't know why you like 'em but you do."
— Waylon Jennings

"First guitars tend to be like first loves: ill-chosen, unsuitable, short-lived and unforgettable."
— Tim Brookes in "Guitar: An American Life"

"I started taking guitar lessons when the Brooklyn Dodgers left Brooklyn. I was so depressed, so my parents bought [me] a guitar."
— Neil Diamond

"If something is too hard to do, then it's not worth doing. You just stick that guitar in the closet next to your shortwave radio, your karate outfit and your unicycle and we'll go inside and watch TV."
— Homer Simpson

The love of Playing Guitar

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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

That's a Smokin' Guitar

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