In 1973 our teacher, Mr Burton, started giving us guitar lessons. We all had a go, some better than others. It was fun. And after a few lessons of picking out Skip to My Lou, we then progressed to our first real song. Leaving On a Jet Plane. It’s amazing how much can be done with just three chords. We were pop stars.
So that was my start at 8 years old. Moving swiftly on, when I was 10 my parents bought me an Electric guitar for Xmas. It was awful and we took it back in January and traded it in for a wonderful 1963 Hofner Galaxie. This wasn’t vintage then, it was second-hand. I’ve still got it and it’s worth a great deal more than the £100 my mother paid for it.
I continued learning and trying to play anything I liked, mostly the Beatles. Now I was teaching myself and had hit a bump. My fingers just weren’t big enough to play bar chords.
In 1978, Grease hit my world and I immediately bought the sheet music. It was all bar chords. I would just have to make those fingers stretch. Lo and behold I was there. My first song played with bar chords. Grease.
Stuart