In 1961 got my first guitar, a Yamaha nylon model, mostly because that was what they had for $27 and being 13 that was what I had to spend. I played French horn and knew music theory so I just figured out how to plunk around and get Tom Dooley and Michael Row the Boat Ashore. As luck would have it there was a piece of disused railway land behind the house where the cowboys used to camp during the Calgary Stampede and I heard some singing and guitar drifting up. I spent every evening down at their campfire with the horses hobbled and grazing and played along, stealing every strum , chord and lick. The guitarist had a Martin 018 and when I went down on the last day of the rodeo they were packing up. He asked me if I would keep the guitar for him for a year or so because he’d got a job in a touring rodeo outfit and was headed to the States for a while.

The guitar was a late twenties model with the small body, 12 fret neck and slotted head. Unlike the Yamaha, it was a musical instrument. In the back of my mind I knew I didn’t own it but after the first year went by I entertained the thought that maybe he’d moved on permanently. A year or so later I came home from school and my mother said she had bad news for me. A cowboy in a fancy convertible had showed up and wanted his guitar back. As she knew the story, she figured he was for real and that was that. She offered to buy me another one and I picked up a 0018 Martin but it wasn’t the same.

It’s hard to believe that someone would trust their guitar to an unknown kid but that’s how people used to be. The next Christmas I got a Julian Bream record which sounded nice so I went to the record store to get another. They didn’t have one but they had one by Alirio Diaz. I listened to it and, as if a giant cosmic gearbox had shifted, my life suddenly knew what it needed to do for itself. I figured it might take me until I was sixty or so to be able to play any of that stuff anything like that well, but at least I had a better chance to make it if I started now. I went to the music store and asked if they had music for the first few pieces on the record. They didn’t, but could see if it was available; however, they had a collection of guitar classics edited by Albert Valdes Blain. The name didn’t sound promising but some of the pieces from the record were in there so I took it. The book was a gem and I proceeded to wear all the notes off the pages. A few weeks later some of the other pieces came trickling in on crummy paper from Union Musical Espanola.

A decade and a universe of guitar playing later I followed Alirio’s advice and took a year off teaching at the Conservatory to study in Spain. There I met a girl who had a Marcelino Lopez that transported me to another level of guitar construction. The boom in guitar had pressed the Spanish builders to the limit and all that was readily available was Ramirez. I’d played lots of high end guitars by this time and owned a few but this one was so elegant and musically gifted that my Ramirez seemed pretty dull and limited by comparison. I studied the construction of it and took a mental blueprint of every aspect. Neither the guitar nor the girl was available, but I figured I might be able to make the guitar.

When I got back to Canada I went to Bill Lewis at Lewis Luthier Supply in Vancouver – which later became Luthier’s Mercantile International – and asked him to sell me whatever tools and materials I would need to make a guitar. A month later I had a guitar, rather sorry looking and crude, which nevertheless played and sounded quite acceptably. I had a 1965 Anselmo Solar Gonzalez – what a handle – that I’d used as a model but I don’t think Anselmo would have picked up on the fact. Two guitars later, and with lots of help from Bill, I had one that put my Ramirez in the closet. Another teacher asked if I could make him one and that was that; guitar maker.

So I guess my bio comes down to Alirio Diaz, Marcelino Lopez and a cowboy who I never knew the name of. I still have and use the tools. The Gonzalez is lent out to someone, I can’t recall who, but they’ll bring it back when it breaks down. Alirio is in his eighties and still playing last I heard. Never saw the cowboy again.