There is a good and quite telling article in the current issue of THE OLD TIME HERALD (Vol. 7, No. 4, Summer 2000 that asks many musicians about their first instruments and how they remember those. Even the banjo players and the fiddlers and the mandolin players ("mannolin" as Bill Monroe used to call it) remembered a GUITAR with more affection than the instrument on which they achived their notoriety. Even old $10.00 STELLA guitars, like my first one, were mentioned with great fondness and nostalgia. Many of the reasons are similar to ones posted in this thread.

The article by Gail Gillespie is titled MUSICAL AFFAIRS OF THE HEART : OLD TIME GUITAR TALES. There will be other articles in future issues with the other instruments as the star, but the guitar was just about everyone's first instrument and therefore seems uppermost in folks' minds and hearts.

Art Thieme