The '90s
1992 Les Paul Special
I had played very infrequently for about five years. The Takamine classical was competent but I missed an electric. I had always missed my 55/77 Les Paul Special and decided to look for another. I hadn’t realized that Les Paul Specials were being produced on an ongoing basis at that time. Again I called LaVonne’s music and bought a guitar sight unseen. When the Les Paul arrived I loved the sound and hoped that I would adjust to the TV Yellow color. I never did. It look like it had been painted in Grey-Poupon mustard. After a couple of months I called Pete Wagener at LaVonne’s and had him order a new Les Paul Special, this time in Heritage Cherry.
1992 Fender Telecaster Standard
How many movies have been made with love at first site as their theme? I have always thought that it was a great way to buy a guitar. I walked into a heartless chain store, picked up a Lake Placid Blue, made in Mexico, Standard Telecaster. It had a minor buzz, but it had something else as well, it sounded great! I knew that I could work the buzz out so I bought it. An impulse buy that paid off. Shortly thereafter I installed reproductions of original vintage Telecaster pickups and designed an innovative wiring/switching scheme that gave me three presets plus the standard range of Telecaster sounds. I rewarded it with a tweed case some months later.
It now has a third pickup, a Tex Max Strat pickup in the center position. Using a Warmoth pickguard and with some routing help from a friend, I have only recently added this mod and all of the versatility that comes with it. I undid the custom wiring and went to a five-way switching scheme. I love the many sounds it allows me to achieve.
I still have this little beauty today. Its fret problems long in the past it is a wonderful sounding, very versatile guitar. I string it from 0.10 – 0.46 and set the action a bit higher than my normal tastes. It is great at jazz, country and slide work but the blues sound is fabulous. Pure Steve Cropper. This is one inexpensive guitar that does it all.
1992 Les Paul Special
The Heritage Cherry replacement for the TV Yellow Les Paul was an OK axe although there were a couple of flaws that the factory missed. It just couldn’t touch the Telecaster. I think that I am more comfortable with a Fender neck. I’ve always loved that feel. The Les Paul was simply over shadowed by a guitar which had cost half as much. Oh well, such is life.
1993 Heritage Eagle
It was time for an archtop and I knew it. I had sold my Ford Bronco restoration project and could afford an axe. The now defunct Guitar City in Lakewood, CO had a Heritage Golden Eagle for sale that had been ordered to spec by a customer who had died before it arrived. They wanted to move this guitar, an oddball Golden Eagle with mahogany back and rims in place of the usual maple. It sounded great! A spruce top with mahogany everywhere else. I said I’d buy it if they fixed a buzzing fret, a common problem in Colorado’s highly variable climate. I came back a week later but they hadn’t done a thing. They tried to talk me into taking as is using the old line about adapting to the conditions in my home. Bunk! I left, called LaVonne’s and ordered a Heritage Eagle with a spruce top. Simple and plain with a rosewood fingerboard and dot inlays this guitar was perfectly suited to my tastes.
Six long months later it came but I was lacking the funds to pay the second half of its price, the first half having served as a deposit. I traded my languishing Les Paul for the second payment and flew to Minnesota on a pleasant Friday evening in April to pick up my new treasure. At the time I was working for one of the major airlines and flying to Minnesota for a weekend was becoming routine. I had seen the Heritage a few months earlier on another trip and I had loved the sound of this archtop. It was exactly what I wanted. I picked up the archtop on a Saturday morning and flew back to Denver that afternoon in a nearly empty 737. The Heritage enjoyed an overhead bin all by itself and we got home a happy pair. I was thrilled the first time I played it and now, over ten years later I still feel thrilled each time I hear it. It is coustically loud but very warm and mellow-sounding. Beyond that it's very pretty to look at, having the classic appearance of an archtop from the '40s. It’s not all that expensive but for my tastes it is the best sounding archtop I could ever own.
1997 Fender Tex-Mex Stratocaster
I had been noticing a new model of Stratocaster hanging on the walls of a local music store. This pretty, vintage styled Strat’ had a colorful sticker on the pickguard that declared the presence of Tex-Mex pickups. Maybe it was the impact of a different type of pickup or appeal of an inexpensive guitar that looked like a vintage Strat’ from the ‘50s or maybe I was just ready for a new guitar but in any event I had to have one. A few weeks later I did. My favorite music store was not a Fender dealer at that time but they helped me to find one from a neighboring store’s stock at a reasonable price. One more little problem, UPS was on strike. I wanted this guitar right now so I bit the bullet and paid for Fed-Ex 2nd day service.
Two days later my Candy Apple Red treasure showed up at the local Fed-Ex office and I had the object of my desire. Armed with the knowledge gained from a do-it-yourself book I setup the Strat’ and installed a white pearlescent pickguard. The Tex-Mex pickups sound great and the maple fingerboard felt and looked great. This little guitar is a workhorse that can handle virtually any kind of music. It would do any player proud.
1998 Melobar Lap Steel with Paul Barth pickup
I've had a long-term fascination with pedal steel guitars but have never felt that I could justify the expense. About the time I bought the Strat’ I discovered Junior Brown with his double necked gui-steel. When I heard the amazing sounds that Junior Brown got with an eight string lap steel I realized that I had found a compromise I could afford.
I found a dealer with several eight string Melobars and ordered a deep green colored one with a Paul Barth pickup. After I received this guitar I found out that the Paul Barth pickup made this guitar a bit of a special find. The people at Smith Music said that I was fortunate to have found this out of production steel. It has a warm full sound that belies its relatively diminutive size. I’m not much of a steel player and may never become proficient on the instrument but this steel is prepared to take me as far as I want to go in my steel playing.
