Until the nonearners begin to earn their own way, the American dream will continue to be bastardized by scammers, con-artists and bribers somehow convincing ignorant people that they have a right to someone else’s earnings. It cannot work and it is simply not true. When it is forced upon and or accepted by society, that society has signed its own death warrant.
I wanted that shiny, handmade, custom, natural blond very expensive brand new Gibson Byrdland electric guitar so bad I couldn’t see straight. It was the summer of 1965, and I had just been abruptly yanked from my home in Detroit where my killer rock band the Lourds had won the Michigan Battle of the Bands.
Due to my father’s job change, we moved to the Chicago area, and the hard-earned momentum of my rock-n-roll dreams all came a-tumblin’ down.
Within days I had put together what would soon become the iconic, legendary American garage band, The Amboy Dukes. My indefatigable Motor City work ethic, throttled on by my firebreathing Motown musical inspiration, was an unstoppable force to reckon with.
I was only 16 at the time, but something deep inside of me burned ferociously, and my musical dream was as clear as the nose on my face. That something told me I had to have a Gibson Byrdland guitar, and nothing else would do — case closed.
It was a strange choice of instrument for a gungho hard rocker, for this one of a kind, hand carved, arched spruce top, thin-line hollow body jazz guitar was rarely if ever used by rock guitarists. Chuck Berry had a brief stint with a Byrdland in the 1950s shortly after its debut, but other than Roy Clark and much later, a little dabbling by Eric Clapton, only the amazing Jimmy McCarty of Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels played hardcore rock licks on a Byrdland.
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