A steel guitar in a music store window!!!

Sam Marshall · From: Chandler, AZ USA

My wife & I took a vacation last week and went to San Francisco. We took a "city bus" tour where one of "our" stops was in Haight-Ashbury. Believe it or not, a Carter Starter is in the window of a music store in Haight-Ashbury.

Best Regards,
Sam in AZ

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

I bought my first steel guitar from a pawn shop in San Francisco, and I saw my first pedal steel in a music store there.

Chip Fossa · From: Monson, MA, USA (deceased)

Hoor Ray

Steve Hellerich · From: Canon City, CO USA, R.I.P.

I live in Madison Indiana. Today while getting out of my car I looked in the window of the local downtown music store and low and behold in the window sits a Sho-Bud Pro 1
Now being a Town of only 30,000 people I thought I would go in and check it out. The owner of the store turned out to be quite
astute when it came to pedal steel. He did not know That there is a manufacture of entry level steels but did say he has had many inquieries from people about such a guitar. I do not play a Carter, But have to give credit to John, Ann and Bud for giving
a lot of folks the opportunity to get into the steel guitar. I gave the store owner thier address.

Graham Griffith · From: Tempe, N.S.W., Australia

In San Francisco, in January 1977 I bought a Gibson EH185 from a pawn shop right next to where the Band recorded the Last Waltz. I got it for the few measley dollars that I had left before flying back to Australia ... about $100.

Graham

[This message was edited by Graham Griffith on 19 August 2003 at 12:02 AM.]

Bob Snelgrove · From: san jose, ca

1968, San Francisco:

Bought a mint '68 Sunburst Strat for $168 at a pawn shop before a Jeff Beck concert at the Fillmore

bob

Mike Perlowin · From: Los Angeles CA

chris ivey · From: california (deceased)

my first big steel turn-on was a beautful purple sho-bud in the window of Leo's music store when it was in downtown oakland in the late sixties.

Chris Scruggs · From: Nashville, Tennessee, USA

I bought my first steel (a blonde 1954 Fender Dual Professional) from a friend while he was playing a 2-6PM set at Tootsies.

It really doesn't get more Nashville than that

!

He had just bought a walnut Fender Dual Professional and didn't want his blonde one anymore.

One week later he wanted to trade, but I wouldn't, cause my blonde guitar sounds better!

B Bailey Brown · From: San Antonio, TX (USA)

Ahhh…one of my favorite Steel Guitar stories! In 1970 I was walking down Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles when I passed a music store, looked over, and low and behold…there was a brand new red Sho-Bud Professional 8X2 in the window. I had sold my rig a few years before, but I had a good job in radio and some extra bucks in my pocket at the time, so I thought, “Gee, I always loved that instrument and I should get back into it!”

I wander into the store, go up to this lonesome looking guy (nobody was in the store but me), and say, “Hey, what do you want for that Sho-Bud?” The guy looked puzzled and said “The what?!” I point to the Steel and say “That Sho-Bud Professional…the Steel Guitar in the window!” All of a sudden he comes to life and says “What?! Do you know what that is?!”, and starts asking me a bunch of questions. Keep in mind at that time in L.A. you could fire a cruse missile through the city and not hit a Steel Player! I think there were only about 6 or 7 players in a 4 million plus area! The Big “E”. JD, Red Rhodes, Herb Steiner…and some “want-to-be’s” like me.

The guy was the store manager and proceeds to tell me that the purchasing department in the mid west sent it out to the store a year before. Nobody knew what it was, it sat in a back room for months because nobody could figure out how to set it up, he finally called a friend who set it up and put it in the window…bla, bla, bla… After listening to his tail of woe about this weird strange instrument he had been sent, I said “How much?” His answer was “What will you give me for it?!” I believe at the time the list price on the guitar was about $1,700, so I said I’ll give you a $1,000.” He says, “Ok $1,000 plus $100 for the case.” Ahh…”No, $1,000 WITH the case included.” He says, “OK if you can tear it down and get it out of here, because I don’t remember how, you got a deal!”

I wrote him a check, tore it down (to his amazement!), and went out the door. Cool…I was back in the steel guitar business! Of course, then I had to get Herb Steiner to help me remember how to play the silly thing…but it was a great guitar!

B. Bailey Brown

Gary Walker · From: Morro Bay, CA

A few years ago I met a guy in Visalia, CA and he had bought light blue Emmons P/P D-10 in a pawnshop in SF for 300 bucks because the guy in the shop didn't know what it was and it needed new strings, haha.

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