I realise this thread has not been replied to for a while... I grew up in Portland, Michigan and I got my first electric guitar from Milt Smith on Christmas, 1976, along with a silverface Fender Vibro Champ. The guitars was a Crestwood Straticaster copy. At the time Milt was still a Fender dealer (and had been for decades) but when new management took over at Fender (late 1970s/early 1980s), the new policy was quota-based dealers and since Milt was a small shop he didn't measure up to Fender's new quota system and they dropped him as a dealer. What a way to do a decades-long dealership... thanks, Fender...
Not long after Milt was one of the first-ever G&L dealers. He was personal friends with Dale Hyatt who goes way back with G&L and Leo Fender to the early (1950s days) of the pre-CBS Fender.
I don't know if this Bill Reed is the same Bill Reed you are looking for, but my father served in the Navy with a Bill Reed in WWII, and that Bill Reed was from Portland, MI as well. I do not recollect this man ever playing guitar, although if he knew Milt and Milt convinced him of the value of the Broadcaster guitar and its limited production, then maybe he had bought it for an investment and never played it.
I was best friends with Bill Reed's son all through high school and I've spent many a night over at the Reed's house on sleep-overs, etc. In the war (WWII) this Bill Reed was a photographer and even after the war had a fascination with photography. To my knowledge he was not a musician at all. Since he was in his teens during WWII my best guess is that he has by now passed on. My father got drafted right out of high school at age 18 in 1944 and dad passed away in 2015 at the age of 88. I think he and Bill (this Bill anyways) were the same age. If he were still living, that would make the Bill Reed I am talking about 93 or so year old.
I bought my first G&L guitar at Milt's store in Portland. It was a Broadcaster. Having sort of an "in" with G&L through Leo Fender and Dale Hyatt, Milt got guitars that maybe some of the other G&L dealers didn't get. Later I also bought a 1995 George Fullerton Signature and a 1988 Leo Fender Signature ASAT from Milt. Now here's the cool part... Milt always kept his best guitars in the case and in the original shipping boxes. He put out a few G&Ls but most of his stock he kept in the boxes. If there was a guitar hanging on the wall at his shop, it would be draped over with a plastic dry cleaning bag to keep the dust off, and it made it so if anyone wanted to play any of the guitars they had to ask him first. He covered all of his guitars no matter the brand or value in that way.
He explained to me one time where he got that idea... he was taking some clothes to the dry cleaners just down the street from his shop in Portland, and took note of the plastic bag they always used to cover the clean clothes. He figured out where to buy those bags and bought them by the rool. He covered his guitars like that as far back as I can remember into the 1970s until he fell, hit his head and the family decided they couldn't let him work at the store alone anymore and the store was shut down.
Milt worked at his store with his wife Doris for many many years. After she passed away he ran the store alone for a long long time. Milt didn't even play guitar, he was a drummer. Years ago he sold drums at his store but later just guitars and basses. Also various bits of sheet music, a really good selection of strings, and over the years different kinds of stomp boxes.
The next year after my first electric guitar Christmas, I was playing guitar with the high school stage (jazz) band and the Vibro Champ wasn't big enough so my parents bought me a Traynor Mark III 100 watt head and a Fender 2x15" cabinet from Milt. Looking back now Milt had some pretty cool stuff in his store.
I grew up in Portland but when I was 19 left Michigan and have since lived all over the country. But anytime I went back to visit my folks, I always took the time to go to Smith Music and talk with Milt. He had so many stories of guitars and gear, I could spend a few hours talking to him and the time would pass so fast. I use a blue nylon pick that I got at Milt's store. I have used this same very thin pick for 40+ years. The only place I have ever seen them for sale was at Milt's store. Back in the day I bought a gross (144) of those picks then years later another gross (144) and I still have most of them, LOL. They don't ever break and they have been the only guitar pick I have ever used pretty much from my first days of playing guitar. The first ones were made by Mel Bay and/or Herco, then a G&G company made them, now I have never seen them at any other store. Dunlop makes a similar but not the same nylon pick. It is the thinnest, lightest pick available. I don't use the pointy end, I curl the round part around my themb and in so doing it can be the stiffest Heavy all the way down to the lightest feather of a light pick. My entire playing style is surrounded by those picks.
My Broadcaster was one of the ones with an ebony fret board. Milt could tell you exactly how many of each FB were made, some that came with a Kahler Tremolo, and of there were any lefties made. Stupidly (very stupidly) I sold mine at a guitar show in Spartanburg, South Carolina in the early 90s. One of the worst decisions I've ever made.
Since those days G&L has become my absolute favorite brand of guitar. I have owned some where around 20 G&L guitars, and Milt is the one who got my addiction started, LOL. When I visited Michigan last September I had business in Detroit but I made a trip over to Portland. My parents have both passed and I bought two long stem roses to place on their headstone in Danby Cemetery south of Portland. I also left one of my signature blue nylon guitar picks. I also bought a third long stem rose and left it in the door at where Milt used to have hisstore on Kent Street in Portland. That might tell you how much I loved Milt Smith. Many other musicians in and around town nicknamed him "Uncle Milty" and he was truly the awesome uncle I never had. He was my dad's age so he could have been my uncle.
More importantly he was the father of my playing electric guitar. I got my first electric there in 1976, then in 2004 he still had the 1995 George Fullerton in the case in the shipping box, so 9 years it had been at his store, it finally found a home, I still have it. In 2011 on the day of my mom's funeral I brought home the Fullerton's brother, a 1988 G&L Leo Fender ASAT (looking like the ASAT Specials of today). That one had sat at Milt's store in the case and in the priginal shipping box for 23 years !!
My mother was my biggest cheerleader when it came to me playing guitar. My first guitar was a $44 dollar Gibson Hummingbird copy my folks bought from a local man named Ivan Burgess. I got that guitar Christmas of 1975 and had my first guitar lessons with Mr. Burgess the very next day. Ivan Burgess was my dad's first or second cousin. He gave guitar lessons out of his house... he also taught only Hawaiian music, LOL. But every week you got a new piece of sheet music and a lessons. The sheet music was 40-sents and the lessons was $1.00. So it was $1.40 per guitar lessons. Burgess had his own method for learning the guitar and was a pretty great foundation on th neck I have kept all these years. He gave me enough info about playing guitar that just a few months later I was able to play with the Portland High School Stage Band (jazz big band).
Maybe a year or so later I started taking lessons in Lansing, MI at a store (no longer there) called "Roger's Music" on Cedar Street. The instructor's name was Keith Axtell and the first song I learned in my "rock guitar lessons" was how to play "Stairway to Heaven" note for note including the lead solo. Every now and again I still break into Stairway and can play all the parts and all the different movements the song goes through. Not long after I started taking lead guitar lessons some of us in the high school band formed a rock and roll group. We played assemblies for the high school and also had a few live concerts where we charged admission. The band fell apart when the drummer went off to college at Michigan State University.
Here is a picture of Milt at his store in 2004 the day I brought home this gorgeous 1995 G&L George Fullerton model. Note all the guitars in boxes behind him against the wall. Those would have been all G&L guitars and basses.
Last edited by candleman on Wed Dec 09, 2020 7:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.