Gotta do the LR a bit early today. I will be out of pocket much of the day (which I had totally forgotten about) and eating on the run. Expecting to not be running amuck somewhere, I made me a treal Nancy Boy sandwich. Cream cheese with cucumber slices and sprouts stuffed in a pita. But alas, I may not get to eat it as I will probably end up stopping by McDonalds or something. Guess I deserved a break today.
July 4 Gigs:
Anybody gigging as part of the July 4 celebrations? I will be doing some time with a thrown together band. No pay but free BBQ.
Big Question of the Day:
What guitar out there that you know is a great piece of lumber, I mean a fine guitar in every respect, but one that even if given to you as a gift you would throw in the back seat of the car and head over to Buffalo Brothers to trade for something else?
For me it would be a Rickenbacker. They are well built, beautiful guitars with a unique sound. The problem is I have never been able to figure out what to do with that sound other than maybe some strumming and playing Byrd songs or something. I keep thinking though if I played rhythm guitar regulalry in a band a Ric might be worth having. But I don't.
Yankee Ingenuity
I cannot thank Leo Fender, George Fullerton, Ted McCarty, Seth Lover and others enough for the wonderful gift they have given us. They applied some good old Yankee Ingenuity and came up with those wonderous guitars - all different but all capable of bringing a smile to your face. But there are also those who we all owe a debt to whose last names do not grace headstocks or have signature models out in their honor.
One guy who came up with some cool stuff was Joseph Zorzi, a violin and cello maker who started off with Lyon and Healy and in the early 1920s went to work for what would later become Kay. One of the things he came up with was an adjustable neck for an acoustic (bet ya'll thought Bob Taylor was the first to come up with that). And it works like a dream. Here is my mid-1930s Kay with the Zorzi adjutsable neck.
