Therapy

I think we all have things we do as a kind of therapy, to escape the trials and tribulations of the day. For some, it is digging in the dirt in the garden and yielding plantastic wonders. For others, maybe just getting lost in that page-turner of a book. Lately, this combo pictured above has done it for me. My son got really good at playing guitar and moved on to a Les Paul from this Squire Strat, which a great axe for beginners and duffers like me, but for an accomplished virtuoso, not so much. He was kind enough to string it up "lefty" for me and leave it to my whims and fancies. Then a few weeks ago my wife picked up this old amp at a church rummage sale. If you twist the knobs just right, it makes that Squire Strat, now enhanced with new Ernie Ball strings, sound just fine.

Most of my musical life was taken up with keyboards (hence the organ in the background - which has a story of its own), but I can get down with a six-string enough to have a really good time - especially if it's strung backwards like this one (the choice of Jimi Hendrix and Paul McCartney, I'd point out...) So lately, this is my therapy. When I'm hashing out some chord progression, there is nothing else in the world. You don't have to be Andres Segovia to have a good time, trust me!

I'm no rock n roll historian, but the electric guitar was popularized by, what, the genius, Les Paul, Bill Haley in the earlier 1950's, and Elvis, Chet Atkins, and quite a few others, and then it really hit its stride with the British invasion of 1963-1964 and thereafter. So a lot of us Baby Boomers were tuning in to Cousin Brucie and his clones all over the country during those formative "wonder years", and a lot of guitar got imprinted on our brains.

I suspect that many of us, to varying degrees, try to relive those days, whether by trotting out the old 45s and LPs, or playing "air guitar", or hacking around with the real deal. All I know is it can take me to a pretty cool place. I mean, it's only rock and roll, but I like it.