In August of 1964 I used bean-picking money to buy my first electric guitar. The 'GLEE CLUB' guitar was a Japanese knock-off of a Fender (?) with a vibrato tailpiece that only worked in the PULL direction. I guess it was still too close, historically, to WWII, and they were probably skittish about dive-bombing. *har har*

Anyway, days later, the parents sent me off to 'prep-school' and I ended up trading that 'Glee Club' to a guy who was living in the dorm, for a very beat-up late 50's Musicmaster and a slightly shabby Tweed Champ Amp. As I was in a 'Surf' type band at the time, I welcomed this guitar even though I knew it was a 'student' model. It had a GREAT tone and fit my hand perfectly. Remember, this was before CBS bought Fender and I was a Freshman in High-School. Please note that I sold the Champ Amp to a friend for $15 (which sweetened a sweet deal even MORE) because my sister (God bless her) bought me a used narrow-panel Fender Pro Amp to use in the band; the Champ just didn't have the push I needed. But I digress.....

The story is; I decided to disassemble my Musicmaster and re-paint it. Again, remember that this was 1964 and it was a VERY beat Musicmaster with a Desert-Sand finish that was fried.

ANYWAY, sometime during the process, the pickup quit working. I was MAJORLY disappointed when I put the whole thing back together for a gig and BINGO...nothing.

So....I took the pickup to the local Fender dealer in Salem (Will's Music Store) and asked them what the problem was. They told me that the windings were 'open' and that they'd have to ship it back to Fender to be 'repaired'. In the meantime, I had to use another Japanese guitar borrowed from a friend, for gigs. This time it was a 4 pickup Lindell with chrome pickguard! *barf* FINALLY, Will's Music Store called and I took the bus to Salem to pick it up. In my pocket was money to pay for the rewind. I was not rolling in dough, so it kinda ticked me off that I had to pay MORE money. BUT......when I told the man at the counter my name and what I was there for, he went down to the far end of the counter and then returned with a small mailing pouch addressed to Will's Music Store with a Fullerton return address.

He handed it to me, smiling, and then walked away. I didn't know what to think, so I stood around for about 10 minutes looking at all the Jaguars and Jazzmasters up on the shelf BEHIND the sales counter waiting for a bill or a request for money.

Then I looked in the pouch and my pickup had an invoice with it....from Fender...and down at the bottom where the total should be, it said N/C. NO CHARGE.

That's my story. Upon reflection, I now believe that Fender, in all likelyhood, merely sent out a 'new' musicmaster pickup. Mine either was discarded or rewound later and given to someone else. Who knows?

Of course back in those days, I would NEVER had thought of marking my pickup to SEE if they returned the original or not. And it wouldn't have occured to me to keep the mailer or the invoice. (wish I had!)

One last interesting thing to note: Will's Music Store is gone, but it's location was only ONE block from the music store that bought and sold the infamous King Tut Broadcaster that is on display at my website.

You can also go to the 'A Little Louie' page and see pix of my Musicmaster (light colored before the pickup problem and dark colored after I installed the 'new' pickup.

Lastly....as the 'British Invasion' wore on, I finally traded in my 'refinished' Musicmaster for a blonde 1959 Rickenbacker 360F single-cutaway with harringbone binding, and a vibrato tailpiece. I no longer have that one either, but before any of you start moaning about the loss of a collectable Fender guitar, PLEASE note that only about 60 or 70 of the 360F Ricky F-hole thinlines were manufactured and are currently trading hands for 15 to 20 thousand dollars! (59 Musicmasters MAY fetch a few hundred in average condition). So I'm kicking myself TWICE!