A love for music and the electric guitar

Thought I'd post something here about my third hobby besides cars and horseback riding.  I am a musician and music fanatic.  I play guitar (predominantly electric).  I have a good ear when it comes to guitar and there are many players who have influenced me.  I've been playing now for about eight years.  There is an adrenaline rush when someone hears the sound of an electric guitar, particularly in the hands of a very skilled player who has a unique touch. 

There are various electronic effects someone can use.  But what I prefer is to have the tone come between a player's fingers, their guitar and their amplifier.  All you have to do is plug directly into the amp in my humble opinion.  Maybe a wah pedal for coloring and a stomp box compression or clean boost pedal are the only effects I'd ever use.  There are many fancy ones out there for a variety of sounds.  But when you get too loaded up with effects, it doesn't let the natural tone out.  I have a 2004 Fender '52 reissue Telecaster as my main guitar now.  It's been there for me since I got it as a Christmas gift and though it has numerous scratches, scrapes, dings and dents on it, it sounds and plays great.  I would want to have a Gibson Les Paul or a Gibson ES335 eventually. 

But, I'll take what I've got for the time being.  My fortes are in rhythm guitar and in bottleneck or lap steel slide playing.  I want to improve as a lead player and be able to play succinctly in that way while still having the ability to really dig in, sometimes.  It's something I'm working on.  I sometime consider slide playing to be my style of lead playing almost particular when it comes to the blues.  I have SO many influences from early blues pioneers like Son House and Robert Johnson, to rock greats like Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Duane Allman, David Gilmour and Jeff Beck, to jazz fusion guitarists like Larry Carlton and Al di Meola and the new generation of jam band blues rockers like Joe Bonamassa, Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, Rich Robinson and Luther Dickinson.  ''

The guitar is such a universal instrument.  You can play damn near any kind of music on it.  I must be stuck partially in the realm of the 1970s when it comes to the music I listen to as a lot of jam rock and fusion bands started back then.  Arguably, jazz fusion began when Miles Davis released a couple seminal albums ("In A Silent Way" and "Bitches Brew" both in 1969).  He and other earlier jazz pioneers have also been very influential to me musically.  It's the idea of improvisation.  That's what I draw on even though it is something that takes years for an amateur guitarist to work with.  With respect to popular music, I am also drawn to arrangements that involve a lot of electric keyboards like the ubiquitous Hammond B3 organ, the Rhodes electric piano and the Hohner Clavinet which was an electric harpsichord/piano hybrid made in the 1970s by Hohner (a company most renowned for making diatonic harmonicas). 

Blues harmonica and horn arrangements also fascinate me and are part of this amalgamation of sounds I have in my head in the landscape of instruments that can be used to create improvised rock and roll music.  I have an unwavering love for music and just thought I'd post something about that here.  Further musical observations may very well become a part of this blog as time goes on.  Stay tuned and to all musicians out there (especially guitarists), keep jamming.