Updated Guitar story

I'm guessing it was probably about 1966 when I decided to buy my first guitar. I was a freshman in college and, of course, folk music was very popular at the time. We also had this group that played guitar at tne Newman center for the Catholic masses there.
Having a limited budget and not knowing anything about musical instruments (nobody in my family played anything except maybe a little piano and we didn't have one) I went to K-Mart and, for reasons I will never understand, bought a 12-string guitar.

I tried to tune it and it never sounded right so I began messing with the neck. I totally messed up the truss rod so as to make further adjusting impossible and decided to take the guitar back to K-Mart in Eau Claire. To my surprise and delight, they took it back and gave me a total refund. With this and possibly a little more cash, I went downtown to what I think was Day Music store and bought my 1946 Gibson LG-2. I think I paid $75 for it but that was so long ago it might not be accurate. That guitar has been my main instrument up until I started buying Taylors in 2006 so I guess that was about 40 years.

At some point, I decided I wanted ANOTHER guitar and I bought an Ovation acoustic/electric. I didn't buy an amp so there was no way for me to play it electically. The few times I did try to plug it in to someone else's amp, it would not play because the internal 9-volt battery was dead. Not having hardly ever played it that way, I didn't even know it HAD a battery. Then when I found out that you had to remove the strings to get at the battery through the sound hole, I was quite dismayed.
Comparing the sound of the Ovation to the sound of my Gibson always left me feeling flat. The Ovation had a wood top but plastic rounded back and sides and the tone just didn't do much for me. I eventually gave that guitar to my son Geoff and it currently resides in my closet because Geoff is in the process of moving.

The next guitar I bought was a Sigma by Martin 12-string. I thought it's 12-string sound would be good to play in church. I picked it up used at a small music store in Sheboygan. Those were the days before electronic tuners and I never was able to tune it so that it sounded in tune to me. It sat. I didn't play it.

In 2006, I decided that I wanted an acoustic/electric that I could play in church. I went looking at some music stores in Green Bay and eventually ended up at Heid Music. They had a quiet little humidity-controlled room and I was able to sit in there ALONE and play my C-Dm-G-Cmaj7 chord sequence from John Prine's "Hello in there". I HATE going into music stores and hearing young kids playing all kinds of impressive electric rifs while I strum my humble chords. I didn't want to spend much more than $1000 on this guitar and eventually settled on two of them. One was a Takamine with external 9-volt battery access and tone controls on the guitar and the other a Taylor 210e with battery access through the sound hole and no tone or volume controls. I must have switched back and forth between the two about 25 times before finally settling on the Taylor. The nice young sales person did not hover or stay with me. He just answered my questions as they came up and left me to myself. I didn't think I'd ever be able to afford a Taylor because any Taylor I'd ever seen was more than 2 grand in price. The 210e was my choice because I just loved the sound. It is a dreadnought design and has a very satisfying bass sound to it. Surprisingly, I was able to overlook its battery access issue and its lack of tone controls. I traded the Sigma 12-string in on the 210e since I really didn't want it anymore.

The sales guy showed me a Fender Acoustasonic Jr. amp which I used to demo the guitars in the sound room and, rather impulsively, I decided to buy it too. This has turned out to be a very good move in hindsight but it did exceed my self-imposed budget.

With the purchase of the Taylor 210e, I became entangled in Taylor's effective marketing web. They gave me my first real exposure to the need to keep my guitars in a humidity-controlled area especially in the winter when it gets so dry. (By this time, my Gibson had already cracked due to lack of proper humidity control) Taylor also hooked me by sending me their quarterly magazine "Wood and Steel". It is full of pictures of beautiful guitars and lots of Taylor-talk.

Thus, I began to yearn for an all-solid-wood Taylor guitar. The 210e has a solid wood top but the back and sides are made of a laminate. It, incidentally, began its life on March 16, 2006 and was the 11th guitar built that day. This can be deciphered from its serial number.

And so one day, on my way back home from Theresa's house near Monroe, I decided to stop at a music store in Madison to look at some Taylor guitars. Having looked at it's website, I zeroed in on Madison Music, Inc., a small store located on the beltline. To my delight, they must have had at least a dozen Taylors in stock including one whose top, back and sides were Hawaiian Koa. To me, Koa is just breathtakingly beautiful and I SO wanted a Koa guitar. I asked the salesman if I could play it and he took it down for me and led me to their acoustic room. At the time, I really had no intention of buying a guitar and since the Koa listed for about $3000, buying was the furthest thing from my mind. As the salesman brought various other guitars in for me to play and without really pushing he suggested that the 714ce-LTD might be worth a look. It is a special guitar as in the spring and fall Taylor makes a limited run of guitars out of woods that normally would be much more expensive if custom ordered. When comparing the Koa guitar to the 714ce-LTD, I much preferred the sound of the 714. The Koa was not as rich and "boomy" and I guess I like "rich and boomy". A seed was planted and as I sat strumming the 714, I got the crazy idea to buy it. It remains my nicest guitar and the one that cost the most. It has a beautiful bright and boomy sound and I love it.

When I decided to retire in January of 2010, the idea came to me that I might never be able to afford another guitar. I had been eying one of the Taylor "hybrid" guitars, the T5. This is a thin-bodied heavier guitar with a 5-position switch which selects different combinations of the three pickups built in to the guitar. You can go from straight acoustic to twangy electric. I decided to spend my last paycheck on a guitar and set out looking for a store that had a T5 in stock. Through the internet, I discovered that the only place within Wisconsin was Jim Laabs Music in Stevens Point. They had two in stock and it turned out that there was special "factory pricing" on each which saved me several hundred dollars over the going retail price. I drove from DePere over to Stevens Point one day and ended up settling on a beautiful clear maple topped T5 custom. It has a much more twangy electric quality which fits certain of my songs better than a traditional acoustic. Thus, I was up to three Taylors.

A couple years ago, I put a Baby Taylor Mahogany on my Christmas list. I had owned a Martin backpacker guitar for a couple years but its tone and body form just did not cut it for me as a travel guitar. The "broomstick" design was really hard for me to hold and it was so small that its tone just barely sounded like a guitar. I gave this guitar to my daughter and she is using it to learn to play.
I never expected to get the Baby Taylor but Liz bought it for me and it has become my travel guitar. It's sound is "decent" for a small guitar and I enjoy playing it on the road as well as just grabbing it to figure out chords for songs that I can't find on the Internet. This became my 4th Taylor.

Having retired and dedicating myself to putting up covers of songs on YouTube, I began thinking about buying a nylon string guitar to play when I wanted to feature my voice on a particular soft song. I had not spent the entire final paycheck on the T5 and there was enough left over to purchase a Taylor NS24ce, the bottom-of-the-line nylon string guitar. I purchased it from a music store in Oklahoma via Ebay and was very pleased to note that though it was advertised as "used", it was virtually indistinguishable in any way from brand new. The price as also less than a new model and it just fit into the amount I had left to "spend" from my final paycheck. This was my 5th Taylor and I hoped it was my final guitar.

Then the worms started to creep into my brain again. They began to whisper "Twelve-string". I wanted a 12 because of the unique acoustic sound that they offer. I do not see myself ever becoming an electric player and I wanted that twelve-string sound to add to the diversity of my music videos on YouTube as well as offering me another attractive option for playing in church. Naturally, I had come to rely on the quality and sound of the Taylor brand and I began looking online for a less-expensive 12-string guitar. I felt that the bottom-of-the-line Taylor would be plenty enough quality for me and settled on the 354ce. The price that everyone (Musician's Friend, Guitar Center, every other vendor) advertised on the Internet was $1800 and this was for a 2010 model with Sapelle back and sides. I looked on Ebay and found a used 354ce for $1359 plus $55 shipping. It is a 30th Anniversary model limited edition with African Mahogany back and sides. After some discussion, I decided to purchase this guitar and it is Taylor #6. It was made in 2004 on May 14th and was the 50th guitar built that day. It is in excellent condition though the top has begun to yellow a bit. I am very pleased and I just love that 12-string tone!

At some point, I'll probably do another video on my guitars so that people can see what they all look like. For now, this is my Guitar Story and I hope to stick to it!!