bvstudios wrote:..the Rick 12 was my Holy Grail...It only took 39 years, .
That's a loooong time from seeing to owning.
I started playing guitar in 1990. Bought my Ric 12 string in 1992. Two years. And I thought it was an eternity. But 39 years?
I guess it has to start with Dylan, via Desire - which was only a few years old when I was introduced to it. From there, I bought Highway 61 and the greatest hits. So, one day when I was searching through the cut outs at the Rickety Rack Record Shack, I pulled out a copy of The Byrds’ Mr Tambourine Man and I thought “why not?” They were not totally foreign to me. I’d seen snippets of the Byrds in sixties documentaries from television and knew they had done Turn! Turn! Turn!, but I had never absorbed their music until I started listening to that album. That was in 1978 - possibly the most remote year from sixties music and style we ever experienced as a civilization. A 12 string Rickenbacker was probably the most exotic and out of place guitar in the world, both in sound and look - and I was instantly smitten by them. I wasn’t sure they were still even being made anymore! I never saw them in any guitar stores or anyone playing one on The Midnight Special. So, by the time I had all of the important Byrds albums (which is all of them) in ‘81, I thought I was the only guy left on the planet who wanted one. Then, one day, like a foot print in the sand, REM’s Radio Free Europe single stepped out of the Knoxville college radio station. Then Let’s Active. Then The Long Riders. The Rain Parade. Rest is history. So, the “moment?” Don’t know precisely, somewhere between Feel A Whole Lot Better and Bells of Rhymney, while looking at the back cover trying to discern Jim’s 360-12 in the shadows along with Dylan there and Cros’ stripe shirt - thinking, damn.......it’s 1978.