My first real guitar
1964 Gibson Southern Jumbo

Prior to buying my first vintage guitar (1938 B&D Groton 1; see posting of January 15, 2011), I only played new guitars — classicals and dreadnoughts. I learned to read music and play classical flute in the late 1950s, but caught up in the Folk Music Scare of the 1960s I decided to buy and learn to play the guitar.

     So, in the summer of 1963 I paid $50 for my first guitar — a brand-new, no-name, nylon-string classical at Sears, Roebuck. Within minutes of bringing it into my home in Northport, NY on Long Island, I'd installed white plastic pickguards on both sides of the sound hole and taught myself to play. I even took lessons at a local music store, but because I already knew a lot of songs, I spent much class time teaching my teacher the words and chords to popular folk songs.

                            Photo: Duane Webb
Ken Lelen and 1964 Gibson SJ

     Then, 18 months later I sold the classical for $50 to a schoolmate I'd finessed into thinking he got a good deal. With this cash in hand and some savings, I bought my first good guitar — a 1964 Gibson SJ, or Southern Jumbo, dreadnought — for $250.

     At the time I thought I wanted a 1964 Martin D-18, which cost about $300, but my parents wouldn't cover my shortfall in funds. No matter. Now I had my first real guitar, which was what you needed to make music and write songs.
     Within a week I played Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" at a high school hootenanny in nearby Cold Spring Harbor, NY. Like many teenage musicians in the 1960s, I thought playing a big dreadnought guitar was how you made music and improved your popularity with girls. Only later did I learn not all guitars had to be that big. And, as important, it was rock-n-rollers and drummers who got the girls.
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            © 2011 Kenneth Lelen — All Rights Reserved