Thanks for reviving this one, YY: I wasn't in the pond back in '99 so this is new to me... I enjoy the very short biographies in the member profiles, but these are much more interesting.

Guess I might as well add my own, different than the one in the Member's profile.

I was born in 1935 on flag day. Much later in life, I discovered that 1935 was the one hundredth anniversary of my home town, when I wrote a song about the history of the town. I was a kid of the second World War and spent about an equal amount of time wiping out Germans and Japs and Injuns. Man, were we politically incorrect, or what? A Red Ryder bb rifle felt equally comfortable in my hand as a sawdust Army 45.

I always loved music, from the romantic big band music of the 40's to the first rumbles of rhythm and blues, folk and rockabilly in the late 40's and early 50's. I'd blow most of my weekly allowance buying The Hit Parade magazine because it had the lyrics to all the most poular songs of the day. The rest would be spent buying 78 rpms, and when they came out, 45's.

I got my first instruments when I was around nine or ten, in no particular order.. Sweet potatoes (ceramic, not plastic) harmonicas, and then a ukelele. I thought I did a particularly dramatic rendition of the theme from High Noon on my ukelele. When I was around 14 or 15, I bought a mandolin in a pawn shop and tried to figure the thing out. After that, it was my first guitar... a Stella. Combination guitar and cheese slicer because of the high action. I tried to make it look classier by cutting out diamonds from a plastic place mat and inlaying them in the neck, and then stripped off the long-underwear pattern cream and gray striped paint and refinished the guitar. It was still a Stella when I finished, and it was still almost impossible to play, but I sold it at a hefty profit.
From there, I moved to one of the first Fender stratocasters, which sounded Godawful with my cheesy little amplifer with one knob on it.
My primary love of music then was jazz, but I'd heard enough of the Weavers and Burl Ives to pluck out a few folk songs.

To make a long story short, I went through a slow procession of instruments... each time trading in one guitar for the next. I gave up on being a jazz guitarist because it required reading music and practicing, and gravitated more toward folk by the time I was in my mid twenties. After all these years, I see elements of all the music I've loved in my life... quartet music, stretching back to the Four Lads and Four Freshmen, jazz guitar, gospel music, traditional folk, story-telling songs and a little taste of rock and roll. Along the way, I started writing songs just for the fun of it, back in the mid 50's.

And I still don't like to read music or practice.

Jerry