I was fortunate enough to have taken a lesson from Ted in L.A. long,
long ago in a galaxy... etc.

Ted was a prime example of the kind of mind-blowing genius who somehow
remained humble and generous. Ted reminds me of a great story told
by the late, great jazz pianist Oscar Peterson.

Oscar said when he was a kid learning the piano, his dad played him a
recording of Art Tatum. He tells how he started crying and begged his
father to tell him this was not one but two people playing the piano
at once!

Ted's book, Chord Chemistry is the most important guitar book ever
written: thousands of chords in only two positions. Most chord
encyclopedia repeat every chord 12 times. Chord Chemistry has the most
important ear training exercises for a guitarist who really wants to
understand harmony.

Here's a video taped at a wedding in 1989 where Ted plays a medley of
beautiful standards.

It's thanks to video tape technology from the last century that we can
hear this and to Youtube, the technology of today that we can still
see and hear it today.

Interesting side note that the Ron Butwin you see here talking after the fact somehow took the opportunity to be a part of this when actually he had almost nothing to do with it.

Seems this disappeared from Youtube, now it's back. My scene is at 6m38s

In the heady days of 1965, I gave George Harrison a 12-string guitar as mentioned here. I forgot about this other photo taken by Bill Carlson until I learned it was part of a book by him about that same Beatles concert in Minneapolis. Thanks to Dominic Cleary for digging up these docs, I didn't even know they existed. The photo is available as a large format poster no less!

The book is called "The Beatles: One Night Stand in the Heartland"

This is my 22,460th day on planet Earth.
 
Sometimes, when a non-fiction book is written, the author actually attempts to do the legwork (or at least phone calls and emails) to verify information. When Abel Sanchez decided to write this book about Eddie Van Halen, "Van Halen 101", he spent two years talking to hundreds of people about the project. I'm pleased to say that Abel contacted me to check on a story he had heard about the origins of Eddies's use of the guitar "tapping" technique. He was told that I was one of the first guitarists to use tapping extensively. There was a magazine article by Lee Rittenour that mentions my use of the technique, but Abel told me there was still some doubt as to the chronology. Another guitarist, with whom I'd played for a couple of years was confused, he kind of forgot that he began using it only after he saw me do it on the same stage night after night. So, I dug up several phone numbers of people Abel could contact to verify what I was telling him, people who were there, people who lived in L.A. at that time, people who were at The Whiskey when we played there in the early 70's. In fact, he was able to reach two of the other members of the band in question. Abel checked his facts and when the book came out a few years ago, it contained a whole section about the origins of tapping, including my part in that.

Why is this important? I believe that all through history, people are quick to take credit for things they didn't actually do. I can not imagine not giving due credit to someone. All artists owe a debt to other artists, no one creates anything in a vacuum. I have never met a truly great artist who wasn't quick to say where he got any particular phrases, or colors or styles. All good artists then go on to make the style or technique their own, and that's exactly what VH did. You can read about it in this book.

Just out of high school, I was working in a Northeast Minneapolis  music store called B-Sharp Music. James Lopes was a character someone  needs to write a book about: sharkskin suit, hair swept up in what I  guess is would be called a "pompadour", one of those guys who could  sell anyone anything. He was a hugely successful Fender guitar dealer
and when the wind blew in from England, he became a Rickenbacker  dealer, too.
 
I thought I was some kind of clever PR or promo person at like 18  years old, but I did come up with an idea that I thought was pretty  good. The Beatles were coming in to Minneapolis to play at the  baseball stadium on August 21, 1965 and I thought of an idea. I told  Jim Lopes, "Instead of giving them the keys to the city, let's give them a guitar." He liked it, and I called Bill Diehl who was a DJ on WDGY, the popular teen AM station. (Heck, we didn't even listen to FM in those days, it was all classical music!) Anyway, the best part of the idea, I thought, was to keep the second key of the Rickenbacker case and give it away to some swooning teenager over the radio.

According to http://www.rickbeat.com/beatles/beatles.htm

"George Harrison receiving his second 360/12 in Minneapolis on August 21 1965. When George received this guitar he "retired" his first from stage performances. The first recording in which this guitar was used was "If I Needed Someone", recorded on October 16 1965 (first take). "
 
In searching for the date of the concert, I just came across an article where a "drummer" we used to call  "Ron Buthead" either mistakenly remembers the origins of the event or he is lying about it. Tsk, tsk, Ron... if it had been your idea, wouldn't you have been the one shaking hands with all four Beatles that day?
 
So the event happened, there were other better photos of it, including some snapshots of poor photographic quality but where you see more of the interaction during the press conference. Maybe some day I can get my hands on those. Anyway, my brilliant career in advertising ended when I saw that somehow, the radio contest only received one postcard from a girl who really wanted that key, so we had no choice - literally - but to award it to her.