Great choice.
Happy New Year. Get better soon and continue bringing joy to your loved ones.

Nice job, Maclin. You should create an index.

Get well soon.

And Segovia is a great way to end.

Glad y'all enjoyed it. An index would be a good idea.

My psychological trick for following through on things like this is to make a public commitment. That creates a sense of obligation that's strong enough to get the better of sloth.

Some external factors just can't be overcome. I missed a few SNJs over the years and I think hurricanes were sometimes involved.

Very glad you found it enjoyable.

Acoustic vs. electric: depends on how electric the electric is. If it's basically just an amplified acoustic, as it was used in jazz for a long time and often still is, I definitely prefer acoustic. But the electric as it developed in the '60s, with overdriven sounds capable of producing long sustained notes, is really a different instrument. And overall I might say I like it better. It's certainly capable of greater intensity and variety.

I think you're right that the guitar is America's favorite instrument, and it does seem to connect with something in the American psyche. But I don't know why. You can see some obvious practical reasons for its spread: you can do something musically acceptable with it with almost no training, and relatively little work, compared to a lot of other instruments. Yet you can also devote a lifetime to mastering it at a high level. It's very portable. It's not expensive and doesn't require a lot of special care and maintenance. In general it makes it pretty easy for almost anybody to make some kind of music, and I guess that's pretty democratic.

Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. Surely those singing cowboys did a lot to make the guitar a popular instrument in the U.S. Was it used all that much in country music before them? Or was it mostly banjos and fiddles?

Jimmy Rogers used it, and he was active mostly in the '20s, before the cowboy singers. But there are a number of well-known solo pre-Nashville country artists who accompanied themselves on banjo. Here's Frank Proffit doing "Tom Dooley".

It's definitely true to say that blues players made it their main instrument early on, but not so clear with country. But that might be partly because country was less of a solo art. The sort of classic 1920s-1930s country sound was what's now referred to as the "old-time string band", which was fiddle-centric.

You can see some practical reasons why the guitar became a preference for solo performers: it's kind of a poor man's piano in its versatility. It can just provide harmony and rhythm, or it can be a solo instrument in its own right. It has a greater range and is arguably more listenable for a long time than the banjo.

When I was 19, my father bought me a classical guitar for my birthday. It wasn't really cheap, I think it cost $150 (in 1960s dollars), but it wasn't what I wanted either. He told me if I stuck with it, he would get me a better one. Well, I used to practice for hours every day and was still playing it pretty frequently in my 30s and maybe even my 40s, but the new one never materialized. Still, I was happy enough with the one I had.

By the time I moved here when I was 50, I was hardly playing it at all and it was in pretty bad shape. It spent about 10 years gathering dust in the corner, and a couple of years ago, since my son told me he didn't really think we could ever get it in tune again, I got rid of it.

I've thought about getting a second hand guitar somewhere, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have time to practice. I miss it though, and I miss the idea that someday I might pick it up again.

AMDG

I wanted a Gibson, but this was a nice Spanish guitar. I cannot remember the name of the maker for anything and that is driving my crazy because I told people who it was for 30 years. I never met anyone else who had one. The $150 included a really nice case, so that sounds about right--cheaper than the Gibson and on the low end of not cheap. Not a Yamaha, for goodness sake. ;-)

AMDG

I can't remember if I've told this story here before, but if I have, I beg your pardon.

My first guitar, a classical one, was bought for me when I was 11 by a priest who was visiting Mexico. It is a Jom. I still have it, but it is in pretty bad shape. I was once stupid enough to put steel strings on it and the bridge popped off. The repair guy put a new bridge on that was shorter than the original, so there are "scars" on the body where the old bridge used to be. The back is all scratched up because it slide against a cinder block wall which I was leaning it up against.

So, in college I saved up to by a $300 (1970s bucks) Alvarez. It was sweet. The tone was beautiful. One day I was taking it to an event. I set it down behind the car, but forgote about it and never actually put it in the trunk. The driver backed out over it. I heard this "crunch" sound. My heart went below the floor boards of the car.

My mom then bought me a $150 Hohner (1982). It is a very nice guitar with an amazing sound for such a cheap guitar and a Hohner at that. It doesn't sound like a mouth harp at all! I still play it, although I know there is a unseen crack under the pick guard from when someone stepped on the case or something.

I love guitar.

These are some very sad guitar stories.

I have an inexpensive Alvarez classical. I don't even know the model number. I was almost guitar-less for many adult years, and if I remember correctly my wife found this one used somewhere. It's good enough for me, except that some of the frets buzz. Probably a guitar shop could fix that. I've pretty much given up on steel-string acoustics because of various problems with my hands. I also have, de facto, a Fender Mustang which technically belongs to one of my children. By this time next year I'm going to be able to play a reasonably convincing few bars of blues. Or at least I was planning to be able to. Right now I'm beginning to suspect that my health has broken down permanently and I'm never going to feel like doing much of anything again.

Mac, please rest and focus on your health until you feel well. Take care. Godspeed.

I'm glad you were mostly kidding. Although a bad virus can take weeks to recover from. Looks like you were saving up your illness for (semi) retirement. :/

Anyway, the guitar stories above are indeed very sad.

I'm laughing at this, b/c it's exactly the way my mind works.

It's also just plain old pessimism.