I almost started playing guitar early, when I was 12. I got a Sears Silvertone f-hole, arch-top guitar ($39.95 wonder) but didn't know it was okay to "lower the action". Didn't know what "action" was, for that matter. So the strings sat up there, as they say in the South, "high, wide and handsome." Essentially, I had a Silvertone "long throw cheese slicer". After slicing my fingers for a week or so, the guitar retired to the closet and I didn't pick up another guitar (this time a nylon string one) until I was 18. So my pickin' goes back 47 years.

1963, San Antonio, Municipal Auditorium, "the Grand Olde Opry", went with my buddies and saw a slew of country music legends ... George Jones, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Don Gibson, Hank Snow, Webb Pierce, Roger Miller ... over the years. We'd go to "The GOO" as we called it every time it came to town. Then discovered Floores Country Store.

I have a '73 Martin D28, a '76 Les Paul Standard, a '95 Guild 12-string, '96 Simon & Patrick.

I had my own country band in the mid-70s playing the Texas Hill Country (Fredericksburg, Kerrville, Luckenbach, Austin, Brownwood, New Braunfels, San Marcos) ... the McCullough Saw Company. DJs and writers insisted on adding "chain" to the name so sometimes I got called "Lee McCullough and his chain saw band." Any Idea how hard those things are to tune? I mean, aside from changing the spark plug now and again.

I have a long list, starting with John Inmon and Monte Montgomery (who I actually have jammed with) but also including people I've never met like David Lindley, James Burton, Carole Kaye, Eric Clapton, Joe Walsh, The Wrecking Crew, the Funk Brothers, Jerry Garcia ...

Biggest audience was Kerrville (couple thousand?) and smallest was a little club with one patron. Most memorable would have been Armadillo World Headquarters (Sunday, July 13, 1975) when I wore a shirt with a tag that said "dry clean only". We played inside and the huge fans were not equal to the heat ... by the end of the set I was being strangled by the shirt and nearly had to cut it off with scissors.

Abbey Road. First heard it the summer of '69. Could never get tired of it.