Like so many others, I was quite taken by the Kingston Trio's "Tom Dooley" that was just hitting the pop charts as my family was getting ready for Dad's reassignment to Rio de Janeiro. I was almost 13. Not long after we got established in Rio - established enough for all of us to participate in building a Heathkit stereo system - Dad had to attend a conference in the U.S.. When he returned, he brought back an armload of LP's to play on the new stereo. Two of the albums were by KT3, their String Along album and the In Concert album. Included also was a Jimmy Rodgers (the Honeycomb one, not the other - unsure of spelling,) album of folk songs. I nearly played the grooves off the three of them.

The stories depicted or implied by the songs captivated my imagination. Songs like "South Coast" "Bad Man's Blunder" and "Lord Randal" blew me away.

There were two American girls, near my age, Marsha and Gail Robertson, who lived in the apartment above. Both played guitar. I was enamored by the girls as well as the guitars. They loaned me one of their guitars for a day or two, showing me how to play a C chord. I was a goner!

My folks bought a guitar for me for my 13th birthday and set me up with guitar lessons. The rest is history.