SPOTLIGHT: JD McPherson’s First Five Guitars — Where Are They Now?

EDITOR’S NOTE: JD McPherson is No Depression’s Spotlight artist for September 2024. Learn more about him via this interview or check out an exclusive video of a song from his new album, Nite Owls, which releases Sep. 27 on New West Records.

Unidentified Child’s Acoustic Guitar

Twelve years old, 1989. Southeast Oklahoma.

First guitar arrives, probably for a birthday, Christmas, or some other gift-giving occasion.  I don’t remember asking for one. It hurt my fingers and made unpleasant squeaking sounds. For all that, I learned a few chords from a ubiquitous beginner guitar book. I soon learned enough chords to play and sing a rendition of “Down in the Valley.” My mother, Pastor Alyce Faye McPherson (retired) stops by my room and says “Nice, David.”

No other memory of that guitar, or where it is.

Borrowed Red Gibson “The Paul” Lower-Cost Les Paul Variant

A bit later.

A memory remains of playing air guitar, gazing into my faux-oak bedroom mirror, along to a radio-dubbed recording of Poison’s “Talk Dirty To Me” on a personal cassette player. This very same evening, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas was airing on one of our three television channels. My father, Master Sergeant Jonathan McPherson Sr. (retired), came in to make sure I wasn’t watching it. He did not know what I was listening to, or about the air guitar.

The headphones kept Bret Michaels’ bawdy lyrics contained to my young ears. Soon after, I ask my brother John (sixteen years my elder) about the electric guitar, which I’ve seen him play in our mother’s church.

John definitely knows the way to play rock songs on electric guitar, but he tells me I should start on “standard” (acoustic) to build finger strength. I wince, remembering the pain of the previous child’s acoustic (“standard”) guitar.

John patiently teaches me the chords to Santana’s “Europa (Earth’s Cry Heaven’s Smile),” but not the lead melody. He plays the lead melody.

We play this song together many times over, and record it to cassette in the church sanctuary. Soon after, John asks me what I would like to learn, and I request “Over the Hills and Far Away” by Led Zeppelin. I had seen a video for that song on one of our three television channels, and I was very interested. I remark that, in the video, the guitar player plays electric guitar. John assures me that, especially the intro I would learn, is not on an electric, despite what I may have seen.

(While writing this, I looked up the video, and Jimmy Page is clearly seen playing electric guitars on the intro, which is not accurate to the recording. John was right.)

I really want to play the red Gibson “The Paul” electric guitar. Eventually, after many weekends, John sends the red Gibson “The Paul” electric guitar home with me and a small Peavey amp to practice during the week.

The guitar eventually went back to John after I received my own, but I haven’t seen it in decades.  I doubt he still has it.

Cadet Blue Sparkle Memphis Youth Guitar

John and my mother take me to a music store.

I select a “Memphis” single pickup guitar in a sparkle cadet blue finish. There’s a distinct metal styling to the guitar. I also leave the music store with a battery-powered Gorilla amp, plectrums, and a curly black guitar cord.

I learn dozens and dozens of songs on this guitar. It is one of the happiest times of my life.

I do not remember where the guitar went, or why I would have ever parted with it.

Many years later, I visited my father in Brainerd, Minnesota, where was stationed to work for the United States Army. I started a band with some young men from Bonanza steak house, where I worked during summers. One of my band members played the exact same Memphis guitar in the exact same color that I had owned. Having grown up relatively isolated in Southeast Oklahoma, my mind reeled at the coincidence, but looking back, there must have been loads of those guitars made.

Thousands of Cadet Blue sparkle Memphis youth guitars. The location of mine, in particular, is unknown.

Wayne’s World-Branded MIJ Fender Squier Stratocaster in Classic White with Triple Single Coil Pickups and a Whammy Bar

Christmas. Probably 1992.

I am sitting on the floor near the tree, handing out  presents to my very large extended family. Writing this, I don’t remember any of the presents I receive that year. But I do remember, at the end, I remarked what a nice Christmas it had been.

I am being videotaped. My brother John sneaks up behind me, reaches over my head, and lays a guitar case on the carpet in front of me.  “Santa showed up late this year,” he says.

I open the case and there is a white Stratocaster.

It was a replica Fender had made of the guitar Wayne covets from the movie Wayne’s World. The bolt plate which secured the neck to the body featured the Wayne’s World logo.

With this guitar, I learn to play the foundations of what would eventually become my job.  It takes me through classic rock that my older brothers listen to, through the burgeoning alternative music movement, and into punk rock and J. Mascis licks. I even learn my first Sonny Curtis parts on this guitar. My simultaneous three bands in High School were driven forward by this Wayne’s World Stratocaster.

My friend and bandmate, Rockin’ Mitchell C, sat on it at a party and broke the neck. I don’t know where the remnants of this guitar are now. It didn’t ever occur to me the neck could be replaced.

Frankentele

Early on, before I am actually able to play one, I ask John “What all kinds of electric guitars are there?” His answer: “Some people like Fenders, and some people like Gibsons. I like Gibsons.”

That puts in my head two formative ideas: Those are the only two kinds, and I have to pick one. Neither of those ideas are, of course, true, but in some way I think they might be.

After the Wayne’s World Strat, I know I’m one of the people who would like Fenders. I feel a Telecaster might be for me.

I start to notice music figures I’m interested in — Keith Richards, Chrissy Hynde, Joe Strummer, Paul Burlison, Gatemouth Brown — tend to play Telecasters. My friend Chad Feurborn in Oklahoma City sells me a black Fender Squier Telecaster. Its pick guard is painted with silver sparkle paint.

At this point, I’ve been combining punk rock with rockabilly and early rock and roll. This guitar takes me through my first band in college, which morphs into several other bands, each more traditional in approach than the last. I do not have a case for it.  I walk into gigs holding it by the neck.

Over the years, I start to replace parts, one piece at a time — a butterscotch Chinese body I found from eBay; a black Bakelite pick guard; a Charlie Christian-style neck pickup and a rail bridge pickup; a Fender-branded Bigsby; and an upgraded neck. I add new strap locks and a brass football-shaped jack plate. I flip the control plate backwards, and swap the volume and tone knobs so I can do tone bends.

It occurs to me now that the only thing that still exists from the original black tele I purchased from Chad is the control plate (now backwards) and a bit of wiring. You can see this guitar in the “North Side Gal” video. I still use and tour with it to this day.

I do not know where the missing parts are.