When I was three years old, my Mom and Dad took me to a big family Thanksgiving get-together on Long Island.

My Mom's Uncle Henry, put his acoustic guitar in my hands.

It was like giving a baby a line of good cocaine.

I was hooked.

At 13 I really dug in practicing (I actually started out playing drums) and within 90 days, had my first band, and in about a week or so we played our first gig in Clearwater, Florida at a teen dance.

The rest, like has been said in this thread earlier, is history ... and at my age it might be classed ancient history ... LOL.

And I am still rockin' and rollin'.

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2007 American Deluxe Strat
'65 Deluxe Reverb RI
POD X3 Live
PreSonus FSP
Studio One Pro

http://soundcloud.com/wally-dow/sets/w
http://reverbnation.com/artist/artist_songs/371830
http://classicrockersnetwork.com/profile/WallyDow
http://facebook/wallydow

cool, that would explain your awesome guitar skills.
amarillo by morning does sound good w/strat

I've thoroughly enjoyed reading this thread. Thanks for sharing your stories.
I was 13 or 14 and the rock world was ruled by Led Zeppelin, The Who, Deep Purple, Hendrix, and Black Sabbath among others. I wanted to be a rock star because they got all the girls. I was never athletic and good looks were not part of my genetic heritage. I was so skinny if I turned sideways I disappeared. I had a friend that started playing an electric bass and he taught me the bass line to the grandmother of all metal songs "Iron Man" . I was hooked after that.
I learned to play Bass thinking it would be easier since it only had 4 strings. My parents bought my first "Bass" for Christmas for $75.00 from a local music store. I still have it. We had little garage bands thru school that played parties and I found that all the girls went after the guitar player and singer so I mowed a million yards (the going rate was $4.00) and bought my first guitar a Yamaha FG 110. (still have it) CSN&Y were the big thing by then so I learned every Neil Young song I could. (my friends told me I sang like him) Scary isn't it.
In High School there was a guy named Jack H. that had a white Stratocaster and he was the local guitar god. He played Hendrix better than Hendrix so we thought. This is when I fell in love with the Strat. If you're out there Jack Thanks!!
Many years, bands, drugs, girls, and guitars later I'm saved by grace and playing for my local Church (we rock believe it or not). Thanks for letting me get this out of my system. I just need one more Stratocaster and I'll be fine.

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I'm not slow... and I'm not fast... just sort of halffast...

Cant remember exactly where I was but I was with the mrs and a band was playing. One of the guitarists had a black LP Gibson and I made a throwaway comment that was the guitar of my dreams. At this point I had never even picked up a guitar.
Ebony LP was because of Jimmy Page and Marc Bolan - odd mix I know but what the hell.
This was 3 years ago.
That xmas I was given a ebony LP Gibson Studio and a Fender Cyber amp.
Totally unexpected.
Now I also have a Ibanez JS1000, Suhr Custom Built Classic and DG Strat.
Oh and Martin acoustic and Ramirez classical (thats the most expensive !!).
And a Mesa Boogie Express 5:25

AND I CANT STOP PLAYING WHOO HOO

I started off playing the bass guitar, but after about three years I got tired of waiting to jam with others or playing to recorded music. I also started writing. Although, I'm left handed, I was told to try playing righty and if it felt natural, stick with it. Well, it didn't. I borrowed a buddies ovation, who was a lefty, and just started playing picking it up and playing.

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Lefty
Stratocaster
Squier Strat
Peavey Delta Blues

my dad took me for leesons at age 6 (1960). about 5 years later some of my schoolmates and myself got together to play for fun. it evolved into my first band in 1966, & i played in different groups until 1977 or so.

We love to tell our stories, don't we?

I was a very good rapper (hip-hop) in high school, I could write lyrics you would not believe and freestyle (improvise) incredibly. But I had one big problem. Most rap music talks about money, drugs, girls, being from the rough side of town or being so tough no one could beat you up. The problem, I had no money, no drugs, no girls, lived in the country and was a huge wuss.

I told a friend of mine who had a band in Atlanta about this dilemma, and he suggested I find a different way to express myself. I ran out, knowing nothing about guitars and got one of those cheap Synsonics with a speaker built in and never turned back.

In short, 16 years ago I had the choice to be the smoothest sounding liar and I passed it up for the ability to tell the truth with my fingers.

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94 Fender Strat MIM
08 MIM Fender Telecaster
Fender Pro 185
www.newdilemma.com

I was born into a family (Dad’s side) of musicians. Dad rocked to the Stones, et al, in the 60’s and played a Silvertone and Strat. Ever since I could crawl, I would grab at the guitar. My folks started me with Piano at 5, by 10 I was sight reading everything, but the 2-3 hours of theory and keyboard every day, along with the recitals every month or so was too much for me. So I was allowed to quit. Immediately I picked up my Dad’s old Strat, learned all the chords (in the first 3 frets) . Took lessons; blues, rock, classical, played with buddies in h.s. and college… but women, drinking, and baseball scholarship took a lot of time. So guitar became a thing of my past.

Fast forward to about 2 years ago; my, now 8 year old little girl, dragged her miniature acoustic into the living room and asked me to play the Curious George song (Who’s to Say, by Jack Johnson). She was born with Down Syndrome, and loves music as much as anybody I have ever known, but will never have the ability to play an instrument. I quickly learned the “Curious George” song for her, and played on this little cheap-o- kids toy… she sang, she danced, she clapped; it made me cry I was so happy. I immediately dragged out my Start, cleaned her up, restrung her, and have been playing every day since for the best audience I could hope for. She and I go to my “office”, I plug up and play songs for her and she sings, and dances, and claps… it’s better than money.

Peace,
84

When I was young in the 60,s I always liked music. I learned to play the trombone as my first instrument of all things. My mother then made me take piano lessons which I hated then but still play around on it every once in a while. So one year out of the blue my parents got me a guitar and amp for christmas. I think I was maybe 12 then and Ive played ever since. I still remember that guitar and amp and wish I still had them. The guitar was a epiphone strat body with a gibson head stock and single coil pickups. The amp was an old ampeg tube amp with a 12 in speaker. I remember that amp sounded great. I have come across amps like it but never a guitar like it.

as a small child i always loved music, from listening to my dads cds on road trips and listening to music while eating dinner music has always been my passion. in 3rd grade i started singing in choirs and in 4th i played piano. though i loved choir and piano i just never felt like they were ''cool''. so i decided to play guitar, and the rest is history.

Kind of an embarrassing story really...but one day when I was about 13 or 14 I was sitting down to play Guitar Hero and a thought shot through my mind. I saw my avatar on stage with his all-mighty axe and I thought to myself, "It sure looks like he has fun with that..."

And no more than a few days later of mentioning it, my dad introduced to me his old 1969 Gibson Melody Maker (double cut). And it slowly but surely just went on from there.

But I have to admit. I can't see a point in Guitar Hero now. Why pay money for a game so you can play some songs on a plastic guitar when you could pick up the real thing and get 1000 times the possibilities with it? Not only does it save money, it's more fun too!

I knew I wanted to play as soon as I heard the "Tribute" CD from Ozzy Osbourne for the first time. A friend let me borrow his Kramer Pacer and I taught myself the opening riff to Crazy Train by ear. Within a few days he took me to the nearest music shop and helped me pick out my first guitar, a used Guild electric. I then bought a Roland Spirit 10A amplifier and an Ibanez Super Metal 9 distortion pedal from another friend who had switched from guitar to bass. I've since sold the Guild but I still bring out the little Roland amp once in a while. The SM9, however, is on my pedal board to this day. It's a keeper.

I wanted to learn guitar so my Mom had gotten my brother and I a plastic classical style guitar for Christmas. Mom never bought anything worth much so it was essentially a junk toy. But as long as the nylon strings lasted you could play a few chords on it. I was about 14 then.

Jump to my mid-20's... borrowed a guitar from a girlfriends brother and got to keep it for a few months. It was a Brazilian made Giannini Graviola. Actually a very nice instrument but hard to keep in tune with the old strings so again... didn't learn much but played along to a few tunes trying to nail down some riffs and slow leads. Pathetic effort at best.

Now, at age 56 and recently retired, I bought my MIM and a couple of amps and a lesson book/CD/DVD set and am doing some serious practicing. Progress, as I often say, comes in baby steps but the fun of sitting down and nailing a new chord, scale, or progression is making it all worth while. Besides... I WILL learn this thing! Did I mention I am a stubborn old bastard?

I've seen a live performance from Eric Clapton's Rocksong: "Layla" (Eric Clapton and Friends 1999). I thought "Wau, who is that Guy? I want to play guitar like him." Now 1 1/2 year later, i know it will take a long time to be so good like Eric Clapton.

Blues is a beautiful music, for me it's the best of the whole world.

I was ten when I first got interested in guitar. I had this really cool music/math teacher who listned to Metallica, Deep Purple and almost all music like that. He taught us the Smoke On The Water riff and I was hooked. I went home and begged my parents for a guitar, it was a few weeks until christmas, but I couldnt wait so we went to the local music shop and bought an acoustic guitar. Now 6 years later I thank that teacher for showing me the guitar, because before that I had no intension of playing guitar and I was not interested in music at all.