Albert Lee, awesomeness and the power of advertisi
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Hey
Well yesterday I just felt the uncontrollable urge to go and place a £200 deposit on a very special guitar. So i did.
Since it's the summer holidays i've been staying in Herefordshire for a while to get away from the constant drone of the M32 and the incessant howling of police sirens and enjoy some peace and quiet.
a few weeks ago that peace and quiet was 'rudely' interrupted by a note on the website of the nearest musicman dealer, based in knighton - "Albert Lee guitar clinic at the knighton hotel, 8pm, free entry, all welcome". I dragged myself off to knighton on the spur of the moment.
It was a good decision - albert lee is so down to earth and modest for such a great guitar player. Had some really interesting stories to tell too. I'm gonna see if i can get him to do a masterclass at BIMM next year. Anyway, he was a selection of 3 variants of his musicman signature model.
There was one in particular, a powder-blue guitar with a rosewood neck, red tortoiseshell pickguard, a two point tremolo with vintage strat style saddles and two dimarzio humbuckers, that really caught my attention. He used it for drop D tuning. There was just something amazing about how it sounded that made me think "i need that guitar".
Anyway, i checked the website a week or so later, and discovered he'd actually borrowed all of these guitars from the shop across the road, and they were all still on sale - including the one that caught my eye.
So i had to go there and try it, and apart from having an absolutely magical tone, it was also a dream to play. Yesterday i just decided "i give up, i have to have it". It delivers a very thick, powerful humbucker tone but with a nice amount of twang to it too, as well as some quacky strat-like tones from the 2nd and 4th positions on the 5-way selector. All these tones are very usable. every feature of the guitar serves a purpose - there's nothing there that isn't completely necessary.
So, as soon i've managed to scrape another £1800 together somehow, i'll have the same musicman albert lee signature guitar that i saw albert lee playing which sparked my interest in the albert lee sig in the first place.
