Everyone knows the saying, “you had to be there.” Another one is, “no one understands how I feel.” This is one of those stories. Only a guitarist knows how it feels to have a well-loved guitar stolen. I’ve had two such guitars in my life lost to maleficence and it something you never get over, much less forget.

The first guitar I lost was a 1965 “Mapleglow” 360-12 Rickenbacker. I had worked like hell to get it, a dream in the making since first seeing The Byrds play “Mister Tambourine Man” on TV. It seemed a member of the band I was in at the time was in need of money, if my memory is correct, to buy some very expensive white powder-like substance. He and another “friend” broke into my parent’s house, took some of my mother’s jewelry, cash and my Rickenbacker. A neighbor saw them climbing through the window, thought it odd and called the police.

The police arrived as they were heading across the front lawn with the “loot” in hand. At that point, my bandmate stopped carrying the guitar under his arm and started using the handle so he could run faster, not realizing I had not bothered to snap the latches. The guitar went tumbling to the ground. He picked up the guitar and ran into the woods across the street from my parent’s house. Once deep into the woods, he buried the guitar under some leaves. By the time the police caught up with him it was decided he would go back the next day and find where he hid the guitar.

I was mildly relieved until I was awakened from sleep by a very large bolt of thunder at about 2am. From then on it was thunder, lightning and heavy rain for most of the night. By the time my Rickenbacker guitar was found the next afternoon it was destroyed. It took me a couple of years to get the money for another one. They fell out of favor with guitarists in the early 70’s and used ones could be bought pretty cheap. My parents gave me money to buy lunch my first semester of college and instead of eating, I bought a replacement Mapleglow 360-12 Rickenbacker from a fellow student who was no longer playing it.

Stay tuned for the story behind guitar number two!

Jeff Beck Group, Woolsey Hall May 9th, 1969

In 1968, living in New Haven had its advantages. The one that lives on in my mind as a guitarist is Yale’s Woolsey Hall. April of 1968 brought us Cream and in November, The Jimi Hendrix Experience. As 1969 dawned, the world was wide open for a guitarist to paint their own canvas. I was a 16-year-old guitar player, with a Les Paul, sitting in New Haven and it felt like the entire Rock & Roll world was coming to me. The explosion of new bands, created from old bands breaking up, discovering new sounds, reimagined from the roots of rhythm & blues and early rock, pushing the evolution of Rock & Roll forward at warp speed, making each new LP a gospel of enlightenment, to be studied and made a part of your language, was beyond anything I can put to words.

The Jeff Beck LP Truth is one such album. In my mind, it secured Jeff Beck’s position in The Rock & Roll Trinity, along with Eric and Jimi and when the concert at Woolsey on May 9th, 1969 was announced, I was up early, in line for tickets.

I don’t recall much about the opening act, Rhinoceros, but I did think enough of them to buy their LP after the concert. The band had two guitarists that played Fender guitars, with the finish stripped off and no pickguards.

I’m not 100% sure which song the Jeff Beck Group played first. Maybe it was “You Shook Me,” to get into a groove. However, I do know that things turned bad fast, as Rod Stewart’s vocal microphone went dead on that first song. The band conferred for a bit and then blasted into “Let Me Love You.” When Rod came in with his vocal, the entire band cooled it down to a whisper! This is Woolsey Hall. Rod didn’t need a PA, as long as the band played the room. I’m not sure how many songs this went on for, but the band played on, until it was sorted out. I also remember them playing “Morning Dew,” “Shapes of Things” and “Jeff’s Boogie.”

Random memories: Jeff played his Les Paul for the whole show; there was a Stratocaster leaning against the side of a speaker cabinet, but I don’t recall him playing it. Jeff never took center stage — most of the time, he stood in the shadows or behind the Marshall stack, even when taking a solo. Ron Wood looked cool with a Fender Tele bass. Who would have known he would become a Rolling Stone?

I wish I could remember more and have something epic or profound to say about Jeff’s passing. I was 16 years old, and that show is a part of my personal mythology; the last time I sat in the presence of The Rock & Roll Trinity.

(Concert ticket photo courtesy of Bob Anderson; ticket stub courtesy of Tom Smith; concert ad courtesy of Timothy Wood)