Music: Franco NogarinMy Guitars
Published: Mon Mar 22 2021
Throughout my life, guitars have come and gone, mostly other peoples,
Mike Heibert's Hondo Longhorn:
Terry Lyttle's Hagstrom III and his Yamaki Acoustic:
While these guitars were what I learned and cut my teeth on, they were not MY Guitars.
This is a story about my guitars, and how they came to be my guitars and the stories that go with them.
In the Beginning - The Guitar that shall not be tuned ;-)
There was "The Guitar".
Me, my Mom and My First Guitar 1971 in Pine Point, Northwest Territories.
LOL still not allowed to tune it, 1972
This guitar was never really played by me, but by others who came to visit and I wanted pretty badly to play it, but was always supervised and mom kept it taped up so I could not turn the tuning pegs LOL
The next guitar in my life, was the Smoked H90 - a guitar I salvaged from a fire, a burned Harmony H-90 Les Paul
Before it was burned and modified by my dad and I, it looked like this:
I got this in October of 1981 from a Fire that occurred at the home of my band's Lead Singer at the time "Danny Dube(RIP)" Danny had it under his bed, and when the fire burned the trailer it was sort of preserved under the mattress, I screwed a shoulder strap, from a portable sanyo radio on it. My Dad and I were trying to restore the guitar in his woodshop. It stunk like house fire and the bindings were all melted, and some of the fret inlays were melted out, while the headstock was badly blistered.
The semi restored stinky version of my H90 can be seen in the First Mann AJ-640 picture below.
This guitar found new life a couple years later as Dad taught me more woodworking and I began building my own guitar of my own design with plans to transplant the H90 neck and electronics into it. The reincarnation never saw the light of day and still sits in my shop unfinished and has become the template for a future version, but thats another story.
The Mann AJ-640 Neck-through Natural/Blonde (Canadian Version).
My Father always belived in the power of music, he was an opera singer, and played harmonica and accordion, and dabbled in keyboards and guitar. He used to tell me when I was little, If you learn to play an instrument, I will buy one for you. At some point, that must have been a pain in his ass cuz I learned every instrument I could LOL. By 1981 I was already playing guitar in church, and had transitioned from drums in our band, to rythm guitar, usually playing the H90 which everyone hated because it stank so bad.
For Christmas 1982 Mom and Dad gave me the Mann AJ640 and a Roland Cube 40 amp, & Terry hand made me a custom strap with my name on it, Playing my first brand new electric (Mann AJ-640) and my brother is playing the H90, I was actively playing and restoring it with my dad.
The Korean built Mann AJ640. A nearly all maple Alembic style electric solid body. These guitars are often incorrectly listed as being made in Japan, which is where they mark their beginnings at Matsumoku) but production was shifted to Korea in the early 80's (Samick). They were built for sales in the Canadian market and imported by Great West Imports. Mann guitars, both Korean and Japanese were produced with high standards and quality craftsmanship to meet the demands of a competitive and thriving market at the time.
The guitar is very well built with an alembic style body and a 5 piece maple/walnut neck through design. It has a solid brass nut, brass inlays and the original high output PAF style pickups (they scream). It has a tune-o-matic style bridge.
In Classic fashion my father gave me a woodworking work of art, and I of course did not appreicate it because its not the kind of guitar ACDC would play, I wanted a gibson and was secretly dissapointed in the "Old person" guitar he gave me. What an utter moron I was, really.
In 1988 while living in Yellowknife and partying my life away, I cut a peavey logo out of magazine, and laid it overtop the Mann logo and using clear nail polish, created a fraudster Peavy guitar Which I then promptly traded for a bag of weed. Again, what an utter moron.
In 2012 my dad had a severe heart attack and we thought we were going to loose him, and when we did not, we brought him to our home in Fort Smith, to help him recuperate before letting him go home 4 months later. While talking with him, we talked about life regrets and I confessed what had happend to the Mann guitar, and decided to find another and bring it to show my Dad. So the search for one began, in the process, i discovered the true heritage of Mann Guitars, The Matsumoku Company and Great West Imports, where I belive My Music Teacher John Cole, purchased the guitar on behalf of my father.
in November of 2017 I struck gold, when I found an AJ-640 (rare) in excellent condition, being sold in Kitchener Ont. as an AJ-688 (way more common)
I grabbed it up it for $550 for guitar , non original hard case and shipping from Ontario to Fort Smith, NWT. A steal indeed.
