Can you remember the moment of guitar playing that made you want to play

RocknRollDave

For me, much as I hate to admit it, it waqs seeing U2's video for Where The Streets Have No Name, with them playing on top of aq building. Didn't directly make me want a guitar, but it started the ball rolling getting me into guitar music.

blobb

My mate's older sisters boyfriend (called Loony!) had a guitar and an amp. I was about 8 or 9, all he had to do was twang a string - first time I heard the sound of electricity that was it.

Teetonetal

Can I claim the most uncool prize and say that it was Bon Jovi that sparked my love affair with the guitar. From being into Sambora I then read up on his influences and went in search of hendirx, clapton, gilmour, page etc. but in my mid teens, Sambora remained the one who held me in sway. I thought some of the playing on Keep the Faith and These days was sublime, plus i loved his two solo albums. 

I then had a really great guitar teacher when I was 18 who was big on bands like the Cure, Talking heads, XTC and Richard Thompson, He opened my eyes to music and guitar beyond the solos.

After that, the most profound mark left on me was by Dave Kilminster, who I was lucky enough to have lessons with for 2 years. just an inspiration. 

crunchman

Mine was actually at a weekend away with the church youth club when I was 11.  They had electric guitars for the music in the meetings, and some newer songs.  Very different to the organ/piano hymns we were used to.

welshboyo

For me, it was my Dad - leaving me plonk around (sometimes using a knife on its side as a slide!!) on his Gretsch (which I still have) through his Selmer Zodiac (which I wish I STILL had!!) 

He played a lot in bands etc was I was small so the whole urge and inspiration came from him.

edenfield99

I can't remember a specific piece of music or video etc, I think I just thought it'd make me look cool.......it turns out it didn't

Philly_Q

Sultans of Swing was the first record where I became consciously aware that the sound I was hearing was a guitar.  Obviously before that I knew Slade, The Sweet etc had guitars but I never really thought about what they actually did with them.

However, the record which made me actually want to play guitar was the first Michael Schenker Group album in 1980.

And I'm still just as shit as I was then.

ChuckManual

Some point between the breakdown to the bassline in 'Hot Legs' by Rod Stewart and the breakdown to the bassline in 'Le Freak' by Chic, the ten year-old me decided I wanted to make THAT noise! ...but my (much older/"wiser") brother said, "You'll never be able to able to walk into a pub and entertain people just by playing bass - you need to learn to play the guitar!"

40 years later, I've still yet to walk into a pub and play guitar. I should have just bought the bass I wanted in the first place.

JookyChap

Crazy Horses by the Osmonds

Dopesick

No real musical act or performance made me want to start playing - I mean I was a music fan already - I just walked past a music shop with my dad when I was about 15, he said 'that's a nice guitar', I shrugged my shoulders, he said 'would you want to learn?', I said 'yeah why not', and then couple of months later I got a Squire strat and practice amp for Christmas. Never looked back since.

Quite bizarre looking back...how that little thirty second exchange had a solid hand in the direction my life would take from then on. I don't want to say it 'changed my life' but it was very close.

MagicPigDetective

It was was the early 90's, Nirvana Nevermind, the solo in the concept by teenage fanclub, Ride etc.  I remember walking past a guitar shop in Swansea whilst on a family holiday,  seeing one in the window and deciding I wanted.... got an encore strat the next xmas

Loobs

Hearing Clapton or SRV, Knopfler or Hendrix I think, from Dad's cd collection. But I think probably Clapton. 

mudslide73

Jimi plays Monterey on C4 in 1989. Followed by BBC2s Heavy Metal Heaven season that Christmas. I'd had some near misses as a little lad but these two things were the defining moments.

iain.reverb

First Guns and Roses record, purchased via those CD clubs you used to get in the early 90's and Manic street Preachers Generation Terrorists bought with my dads Benson and Hedges tokens !!

Connor03

For me it was when Elvis Presley played the guitar, I am a big elvis fan and wanted to be just like him

scalino65

Hearing  Elvis' "guitar man", I only learned years later that it was played by Jerry Reed. Must have been about 7yrs old at the time. Yet, I still cant sound like that nearly 40 yrs later...sigh...
hoho, then having to get my head around the idea that The Snowman was such an amazing gtr player as well as being Burt Reynolds side kick 

shugz

Yup, Hendrix on the Lulu show.

They re-ran a lot of footage around the 20th anniversary of his passing and I saw this on TV. Just seemed from another world and even as a kid, I kinda knew he was going a bit 'off-piste' with the whole intro then seguing into Sunshine of Your Love. Fabulous.

To this day, whilst I like Hendrix, he's never been 'huge' in terms of an overall influence on me but yeah, that was the clip for me and the whole slippery slope of geetardom.

Cheers 
Hugh

RandallFlagg

Sex Pistols, the better songs from The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, I was 13 when it came out and somehow ended up with a copy from some of the older punks in the village and loved Something Else, C'mon Everybody, Silly Thing, My Way, Belsen (live) and was in awe of Steve Jones guitar tone and playing. That was it, I had to have an electric guitar after that!

AuldReekie

First time I heard "Wonderful Land" by the Shadows on the "Black and White Minsteral Show" around 1962.  Just had me hooked

drwiddly

I think that for me, the initial spark was hearing The Shadows when I was about six. The experience was then intensified by the Beatles and all the other beat groups of the 60's. By the time I hit my early teens there was Clapton, Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac and Free so as soon as I got a Saturday job, I started saving for my first guitar and amp.