Sorry About Going Dark!

When I first started this blog, I had a lot of things I wanted to share with anyone who had an interest in the subject matter. My health "experience" of the past three years surely put a damper on a lot of those plans. Of course, dying would have made the plans impossible! :-) So I'm thankful for the "experience." I'm in a position of getting somewhat good health news from time to time, which gives me periods of vacation from any heavy healthcare. I'm making the most of these times.

There are a lot of songs I've written along the line that I've intended to arrange and record "later." Well "later" is here, so I spend a lot of time doing that.

I'm also going to give some of the instruments and outboard gear I've stored for years a new home by auctioning them off. This includes one of the what I could call "Doom" guitars that I used to come up with music for many of the game projects I worked on. It's a red Gibson ES-330 that's had the pickups raised a bit (reversible). I bought it to celebrate not losing any fingers while in the Army. That was shortly after I returned from overseas. I bought it from George Luther at Rhythm City in Atlanta. It was my first of many purchases from him. George started the music superstore as you may know it today. If you have the time, watch George recall his and Rhythm City's experience in a NAMM 2008 Oral History (video).

George started Rhythm City in 1961 with money he and his wife had saved for years. He bought all of his merchandise with cash and never borrowed money from a bank. He would beat anyone's price to get a sale. Other music merchandisers didn't like his competition, but they had to respect his success.

Sorry about going off on this, but I always loved to deal with George. When I lived in Florida in the late 90's, I was in a Sarasota mall, and well ahead of me, I saw George from behind. I caught up with him and discovered that he had retired after selling Rhythm City to Guitar Center. Reading about the sale later, suppliers and competitors praised the "shrewd move" by Guitar Center Management, and one supplier noted Guitar Center got an immediate presence in Atlanta and "[took] out a major competitor." I had to laugh out loud when I read the last part of that statement!

I'll put up another post with more about the auction, including the reason, recent photos, the serial number and such.