Guildedagain
Enlightened Member
Ok, so the babes were definitely older ;[] But here I am, playing the F112 at a very large gathering, 1st big party in the valley this year, a 70th Bday for the gal hosting the party (a huge place with a stage), and a 50 year anniversary for me and her this year since getting here in '74. We've known each other that long, through 2 husbands, last one's dead and I still miss him (the 1st one was at the party with current and very longtime wife), and she's my wife's truest friend for decades now. And soon I find myself surrounded by ladies at the campfire in front of the stage, and they're telling me how good the guitar sounds, asking me how old it is, how it looks great, on and on.
The minute I had started playing it just casually walking around warming up after taking it out of the case, an older gent I'd never met, John, came over to tell me how great it sounded and how he hadn't heard a 12 string in long time, and how much he missed all the great players we've lost recently, and how he'd seen John Prine so many times over decades, and how much he missed him, he about teared up and I got to share my all time favorite JP lyrics with him, "There's a hole in Daddy's arm..." He said "Prine was a poet".
And so this one lady sits to my left, the good side, introduces herself - while I'm playing, asks, how long... have you been playing? Holding out her hand for a proper lady handshake.
And so I say "Since I was 8", in 1968 and realized for the first time that I started playing guitar the year the guitar was made, and while I've had several "birth year" guitars and still do, I've never felt the connection that strongly, but this, the year I started playing, it is meaningful.
And then my new favorite tagline "This guitar was around for Woodstock", and mindblowing the gal says "I was at Woodstock, I'm from Buffalo, I saw Hendrix on the last day, etc, etc" I got goosebumps.
The Bday gal's 1st husband wife says "My Dad took me to see the Beatles in '64", which almost trumped the Woodstock thing I would have liked to have heard more about.
Another one had seen Led Zeppelin multiple times.
Another one The Dead multiple times, at the Cow Palace, and other places.
Right next to me I had these gals who's seen Hendrix, The Beatles, Zeppelin, unreal.
And one gal, Virginia was married to a well known musician over in the big city and all of them know the same folks I knoew from years ago, a local Lute builder in Irish band Floating Crowbar who actually asked me to go get a coffee with him once, in another lifetime, which makes me near royalty in that elevated local circle.
At some point my wife and host noticed I had an "entourage" while almost everybody else as the party hanging out by their rigs, smoking, the younger folk, under 50 yet.
I just played and played and played, in Double Dropped D the whole time.
Mostly Cinnamon Girl* (totally blaming WW), over and over, with little variations, getting better at the verse chords sequence each time, it was really making people's ears perk up. This kid, A. Young comes over to watch me play and say hi. His Grandpa just passed away last fall, I'd known him 50 years and we played guitar on this same stage many many times. He was an amazing singer guitar player. And the grandson plays, he was a big deal ten years ago when he got going.
It got cold, there was raging fire, wind blowing flames over, I'd have to lean way back for a second, and the F112 never needed any retuning, not one string all afternoon/evening, this started at 3pm andf went on til dark.
Because of the time change it was a struggle to get there on time, it was a potluck so we made/brought food, but I still found the time to have the guitar totally ready, I mean totally.
I'd been working on it for days, since receiving the saddle from Christopher Cozad on the 13th. Ooo, the 13th. And the guitar is OA 113, the 13th by serial number when the F112 was brought to market in 1968 with serial # OA 101.
I sweated - literally- over that saddle for a couple days, didn't ruin my marriage but it tried.
The guitar tried to reject the new part, acted weird, I tightened the TR nuts on a hunch, they were both near loose, and the the weirest thing happened, it was like someone had dropped the nut slots dramastically, I had to capo @ 2 to get it to play, and I could tell the saddle was right, if not still a bit too low, but so much better, so much better, I've got all my notes everywhere, and it made the guitar harder to play, so maybe that's as high as I need the strings.
So took all the tension off the TR's again, in Double Dropped D, just not really enough tension on the neck, and ran em down to just past seated so nothing rattles and it's good. I put the cover back on, upside down at first, but I could see a gap around the sides...
In the end, I won.
The guitar started sounding more and more marvelous, and I also had a couple days to learn Cinnamon Girl proper. Around here, we got Cinnamon bears, Black bears that turn Brown in summer, so I could easily re-write the lyrics to fit a more local theme, besides obsessing over someone else's wife "coming at him through Phil Och's eye's playing finger cymbals".
As Neil said "I had a hard time explaining to my wife" lol.
Song was also wrote in a "fever dream" while he was sick, he wrote several songs in one day, Cinnamon Girl, Down By The River, and a couple other ones.
* And it keeps playing through my head in an infinite loop.
The minute I had started playing it just casually walking around warming up after taking it out of the case, an older gent I'd never met, John, came over to tell me how great it sounded and how he hadn't heard a 12 string in long time, and how much he missed all the great players we've lost recently, and how he'd seen John Prine so many times over decades, and how much he missed him, he about teared up and I got to share my all time favorite JP lyrics with him, "There's a hole in Daddy's arm..." He said "Prine was a poet".
And so this one lady sits to my left, the good side, introduces herself - while I'm playing, asks, how long... have you been playing? Holding out her hand for a proper lady handshake.
And so I say "Since I was 8", in 1968 and realized for the first time that I started playing guitar the year the guitar was made, and while I've had several "birth year" guitars and still do, I've never felt the connection that strongly, but this, the year I started playing, it is meaningful.
And then my new favorite tagline "This guitar was around for Woodstock", and mindblowing the gal says "I was at Woodstock, I'm from Buffalo, I saw Hendrix on the last day, etc, etc" I got goosebumps.
The Bday gal's 1st husband wife says "My Dad took me to see the Beatles in '64", which almost trumped the Woodstock thing I would have liked to have heard more about.
Another one had seen Led Zeppelin multiple times.
Another one The Dead multiple times, at the Cow Palace, and other places.
Right next to me I had these gals who's seen Hendrix, The Beatles, Zeppelin, unreal.
And one gal, Virginia was married to a well known musician over in the big city and all of them know the same folks I knoew from years ago, a local Lute builder in Irish band Floating Crowbar who actually asked me to go get a coffee with him once, in another lifetime, which makes me near royalty in that elevated local circle.
At some point my wife and host noticed I had an "entourage" while almost everybody else as the party hanging out by their rigs, smoking, the younger folk, under 50 yet.
I just played and played and played, in Double Dropped D the whole time.
Mostly Cinnamon Girl* (totally blaming WW), over and over, with little variations, getting better at the verse chords sequence each time, it was really making people's ears perk up. This kid, A. Young comes over to watch me play and say hi. His Grandpa just passed away last fall, I'd known him 50 years and we played guitar on this same stage many many times. He was an amazing singer guitar player. And the grandson plays, he was a big deal ten years ago when he got going.
It got cold, there was raging fire, wind blowing flames over, I'd have to lean way back for a second, and the F112 never needed any retuning, not one string all afternoon/evening, this started at 3pm andf went on til dark.
Because of the time change it was a struggle to get there on time, it was a potluck so we made/brought food, but I still found the time to have the guitar totally ready, I mean totally.
I'd been working on it for days, since receiving the saddle from Christopher Cozad on the 13th. Ooo, the 13th. And the guitar is OA 113, the 13th by serial number when the F112 was brought to market in 1968 with serial # OA 101.
I sweated - literally- over that saddle for a couple days, didn't ruin my marriage but it tried.
The guitar tried to reject the new part, acted weird, I tightened the TR nuts on a hunch, they were both near loose, and the the weirest thing happened, it was like someone had dropped the nut slots dramastically, I had to capo @ 2 to get it to play, and I could tell the saddle was right, if not still a bit too low, but so much better, so much better, I've got all my notes everywhere, and it made the guitar harder to play, so maybe that's as high as I need the strings.
So took all the tension off the TR's again, in Double Dropped D, just not really enough tension on the neck, and ran em down to just past seated so nothing rattles and it's good. I put the cover back on, upside down at first, but I could see a gap around the sides...
In the end, I won.
The guitar started sounding more and more marvelous, and I also had a couple days to learn Cinnamon Girl proper. Around here, we got Cinnamon bears, Black bears that turn Brown in summer, so I could easily re-write the lyrics to fit a more local theme, besides obsessing over someone else's wife "coming at him through Phil Och's eye's playing finger cymbals".
As Neil said "I had a hard time explaining to my wife" lol.
Song was also wrote in a "fever dream" while he was sick, he wrote several songs in one day, Cinnamon Girl, Down By The River, and a couple other ones.
* And it keeps playing through my head in an infinite loop.
