Pribek

Part 2 of Dave Abner’s, three part, Branson Daily News piece is up and you can check it out here.

I was caught expounding about the early days again and discussing the virtues of the Fender Telecaster…

Pribek is mostly a one-ax guy.

He’s played bunches of them through the years – Gibson Les Pauls and Fender Telecasters and Stratocasters are but a few.

But it’s the Telecaster – the Tele (TELL-lee) – he revisits again and again.

In fact, he’s spent the better part of the past few years playing nothing but Telecaster – and not one Tele out of a collection of a dozen, but one Tele.

A single Tele. His bread-and-butter ax.

Part of it’s just what you know.

“I’m used to ‘em,” Pribek said. “I know ‘em inside and out.”

He said some age-old guitar questions (Fender or Gibson? Strat or Tele?) are decided the same way some guys decide car choices.

“It’s like Ford and Chevy,” Pribek said.

My buddy, Larry Holiday, who I’ve gigged with many times and is a real good player and singer, is also a guitar collector. When I’ve played with Larry he has always showed up with different guitars, every time. Larry came out with the best stuff of the day.

Holiday was asked a question: Why do guitar players so often become guitar collectors?

His response: “Why do women like to buy shoes?”

He recalled an ex-wife who liked dogs.

Holiday said, “I told her, ‘Every time you bring home a new dog, I’m getting a new guitar.’

“She got up to 13 dogs at one time.”

Holiday maintains about two-and-a-half-dozen instruments in his arsenal.

“I’ve been staying pretty close to thirty (guitars). If I get rid of one, pretty soon I’ll get one.

“Sometimes I have to open the cases to see what I have.”