Some of you may remember that about a year ago I was diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer, and ended up in a wheelchair, playing a Córdoba Mini II classical guitar. Things have progressed well, I graduated to a walker which I still use some of the time, but mainly am getting around on one or two canes, and in the house am able to walk short distances unaided. Yay!
One of my very closest friends is a fine classical guitarist, also great jazz and Brazilian player— he decided I needed a "real" classical guitar to practice on, so gave me an old Aria Matsuoka flamenco guitar. It was missing three of the side dots and had a couple of small chunks out of the bass side of the fingerboard, all of which I was able, with all my newfound spare time, to fix. Touched up the fret ends, light recrowning, and rolling the edge of the fingerboard, plus a fresh set of strings, and I ended up with a pretty nice instrument. Will be installing bone saddle and nut next week.
I started studying classical guitar seriously, and am making good progress— not as easy as I had thought, considering I have 75 years of jazz, blues, funk, Latin and Brazilian under my belt. In fact, a very humbling experience, but one I’m really enjoying. What’s really cool is the improvement in my jazz and Brazilian techniques, which I had suspected and hoped might be the case …
I finally took the plunge and put my '51 Fender 5A3 Deluxe amp up for sale, on consignment at Emerald City Guitars in Seattle. You can see it on their website … it’s a really sweet sounding amp, the original speaker has about 3 to 4 hours on a recone done by Around The Sound, to make it sound like it would have as it came off the factory floor. Check it out!
I had mixed feelings about selling it, but realistically for me it was a one trick pony, albeit a superb one.
I’m anticipating being able to get out and play again next year (no outdoor gigs in the winter for me!!), and have decided to buy a Takamine TC132SC—not cheap ($1,549.99), but I’ll still have a bundle left over after that from the sale of the Deluxe, so might also spring for a Fender Acoustic Junior Go, as my Mustang II is going to be too heavy for me to schlep around for a while …
Glad to see that all the usual suspects are still active on the forum, and I plan to check in more often from now on—missed y’all …
