1959 Rickenbacker 450 Combo, part 1

"The Accidental Guitarist"

My first serious encounter with the guitar was accidental, or more precisely, the result of an accident. I broke my left arm playing football as a teenager in 1959. The compound fracture was so bad they had to put it back together with a metal plate and screws. When they removed the cast three months later, my elbow was so stiff I couldn't straighten it, and there was no strength in my hand or fingers.

I was at a friend's house a few days later, showing off my surgery scar, when his father (a guitar player) suggested guitar therapy for the lame arm. He picked up his beat-up old Stella steel-string flattop, showed me how to tune it, strum it, a few easy chords, and told me to take it home for awhile.

As soon a I put my hands on the guitar I was hooked! I completely forgot about the injury, all I cared about were the cool sounds I could make. Within a week I'd figured out the beginning riffs to "Guitar Boogie Shuffle" and "Rebel Rouser" by ear and my left hand was getting stronger every day. By the time my next birthday came around, I'd convinced my parents to get me an electric guitar, a brand new Rickenbacker 450 Combo model solidbody with two pickups and a sexy red Fireglo finish, very cool!

It was a great time to be a teenager with an electric guitar - Rock'n'Roll was in it's prime and the radio was filled with guitar hits by Chuck Berry, Duane Eddy, the Ventures, any many others. I learned them all, wearing out the grooves in my 45rpm records by dropping the needle in the same spot over and over and over trying to figure out how to play a particular lick. I couldn't afford an amplifier, so I built one from scavenged parts and tubes from old radios. I put together a band called "The Road Runners" with a couple of guys from my high school to play the annual talent show, we brought the house down! A few months later I was hired by a real band that played wedding receptions and local night clubs, nice gig for a teenager... You mean I actually get paid cash to have this much fun?

Now, after all these years, the 6 inch scar on my left arm still marks the spot where there's hardware screwed into the bone underneath, but it also marks the beginning of an extraordinary lifelong musical odyssey that took me all over the world. Wherever I travelled, my guitar was my "all access" pass, my interpreter when there was no common language, my magic key to unlock doors to otherwise inaccessible places, sometimes following and sometimes pointing the way. A borrowed Stella restored my left arm, but my Rickenbacker gave me the whole world, asking only for an occasional set of new strings in return. What a bargain! It was my main gig axe until I bought a Gibson ES-345 in 1971. The Gibson was sold a few years later, but the Rick is still around, here's what it looks like today...

By the mid-1970s, the original red Fireglo was so beat-up that I stripped it down and did a natural finish, replacing the brass plated metal pickguard with a custom made black plastic version. At the same time I installed a set of Schaller sealed tuners, a brass nut, a Gibson SG style bridge, swapped the bridge pickup with a 1962 Telecaster pickup, rewired for single volume and tone controls, and refretted with jumbo frets. Vintage purists might not approve of my mods, but it was a much better guitar afterward.

Although still playable, it's 50 years old and needs some serious work. The truss rod is bent at the nut (on the verge of breaking) and the fretboard has started to delaminate from the neck. At this time, I haven't decided whether to do a complete restoration to its original 1959 vintage Fireglo glory, or simply make the necessary structural repairs. Until I do, there are other guitars ready to be turned into sawdust!