Guitar Archeology

It was 1964, I was living at RAF Woodbridge, Suffolk, England.

Front Gate RAF Woodbridge

It was a great time to be in England with the Music scene happening at the time.  We had some great music coming to the base playing the clubs.

Airmans Club RAF Woodbridge

I was able to experience bands like The Animals, The Searchers, Georgie Fame and Dusty Springfield.  After school, I would go to the Base Exchange and look through the catalogs at pictures of guitars and pick out the ones that I liked, always hoping that I might be able to get one someday.

Base Exchange RAF Woodbridge

But, it was seeing The Rolling Stones at the Gaumont Theatre in Ipswich that really got me motivated to play the guitar.

Gaumont Theatre Ipswich

I got my first guitar a ‘Stella’.  I had borrowed it from my neighbor, Billy Bird.  It had one string (the low E string…)  I learned to play the ‘Peter Gunn Theme’ and was able to talk my parents into buying it for me.

The guitar cost $5 !  The new strings cost more than the guitar did.   My cousin Sue, boyfriend at the time (later to be husband) Des Lee, played in a band called “Lee Walker and the Travellers”, came by, put the new strings on and taught me my first chords, E, A and D.   He told me these 3 chords are Rock n Roll and that’s all you need.  Best lesson I ever got!

Here is the Guitar;

Stella

I used this till I was able to get my first Electric Guitar, a Green Sunburst Rosetti Lucky7 at a second hand shop at the Market in Doncaster, Yorkshire.

I finally found an artist to endorse the Gibson S-1 (Strat copy). Ronnie Wood had paid his dues with Rod Stewart in the Small Faces and now he was joining the Rolling Stones. He wanted his friends to know about his promotion, and what better way than a high profile advertising campaign by Gibson? I was telling the photographer not to print any pictures showing Mr. Wood playing through the Fender amplifier.

The Rolling Stones played Hullabaloo with the Kingsmen and were impressed by the Sunn units. They spread the word to the Who and others.

The Rolling Stones with Sunn Amps