Born in Nashville, Tenn ...
December 1950. It was the middle of the worst blizzard on record. Still, all of my relatives had to get to the hospital somehow to see me. My uncles all loved that Country/Western music, especially the pedal steel guitar. I was more interested in Chet Atkins and Merle Travis and those big Gibsons and Gretsches they played. I think I was 10 years old when I got one of those crystal radio sets and I tuned in to the pop stations WKDA, WMAK and the R&B stations WVOL & WLAC. Many nights I went to sleep with that earplug cranking just waiting for my favorite song "Apache!"
All of my friends played as kids and I would come home from school, and watchthose country music shows on TV featuring Bobby Lord, Eddie Hill, Porter Waggoner, and Ralph Emery. Besides Chet and Merle, there was Hank Garland, Jim Colvard, Jimmy Capps, Don Rich, and Grady Martin. Later came Reggie Young, Dale Sellars, Brent Mason, and Mac Gayden.
I started playing professionally at age 15. I was making money and could afford to buy guitars, motorcycles, and hamburgers. The most popular music store in town was Hewgley's located on Commerce between 7th & 8th. Any Saturday, you could see Chet Atkins, Jimi Hendrix or Duane Allman. I was playing a Gibson 335 through a Twin. I loved the Les Pauls but they were just too heavy. I had a chance to buy a 1961 SG Les Paul (fretless wonder, white, 3 gold pickups) from my bass players brother for $300 and that guitar was probably my all time favorite.
My band was lined up to tour New England playing for the Mafia in towns like Boston, Providence, Pawtucket, Newport, Block Island, and North Attleboro, Mass. We were in Providence when we went out for breakfast after the show and somebody broke into our bus and stole that SG. I was destroyed. I called the club owner and he said he could get it back when they tried to fence it. Meanwhile, I was to go see Sylvio DiPippo at his music store in town and pick out something to play. All he had was a Fender Stratocaster to take to the gig that night. After 2 weeks, I got used to that Fender and later when I got my first Marshall stack, those weak pickups somehow didn't seem to matter anymore.
I began my work on custom instruments in 1974 when I met Bill Lawrence. He had just been relocated to Nashville from Michigan and was in the process of setting up the new Gibson Guitar factory. We were constantly going over previous designs and redesigning the latest test models for Gibson through Lawrence Sound Research and our custom shop. We combined all of our newest ideas in guitar pickups with the best of the good old days. Several versions of pickups were released including the first soundhole acoustic/magnetic pickup, the L-90 and the L-280 for Stratocasters and L-500 for Gibsons. We went ahead with full scale guitar designs and brought in Tom Holmes to help with production. I took over the in-house Custom Shop doing custom modifications and installations. Some time later, I left to start my own custom shop and got most of the repair and custom work from the Nashville area professionals as well as the local music stores.After many years of building, playing, and touring the country with Waylon Jennings and The Crickets, I packed up and moved to Los Angeles in 1984. I ended up working with Westwood Music. Then about a year later, we had the good fortune of bringing in Rick Turner to work with us. Rick is best known for his work with the Alembic Guitar company in the early 70's, as well as the popular Rick Turner Guitars of today.
During this period, I also hooked up with Robin Whittle of Real World Interfaces in Melbourne,Australia and helped him market his wonderful modifications to the Roland line of synthesizers here in the U.S. I already had my degree in electronics so I did all of the circuitry modifications. These mods were a complete circuitry redesign and hardware upgrade to the Roland line up. Our mods to the MT-32, D-110, D-10, and D-20 have been very successful worldwide.
Neely Custom Guitars has evolved over the last 35 years. It incorporates my many years of playing the guitar professionally with the wonderful designers and musicians I've been able to work with. My years in college studying electronics, architectural drawing, photography, and computers have blended with years of building guitars to aid in the designs of my own line of instruments. My NepTune interval correction has been installed on over 400 guitars as an aftermarket modification and is incorporated in every acoustic or electric guitar that I build.
MUSICAL INFLUENCES
Country music always reminds me of the barber shop. Although it was my first influence, I always enjoyed R&B more... guys like Chuck Berry and Little Richard. Nashville had a large R&B community with clubs, record labels, and television. Saturday night at 12:00 on channel 5, came Night Train with your host..... Noble B. Blackwell. The show started with a full quart of Sterling Beer on the desk, and as the show progressed, the bottle emptied. The house band was The King Kasual band with Johnny Jones on lead, Billy Cox on bass, Ring Brown on drums, and Jimi Hendrix on rhythm. Hendrix actually played a Telecaster upside down, while Johnny Jones playecd lead on a Gibson 335.
Early on, my bands were playing R&B because I liked to make the people dance. I would get in real close with my drummer and bass player and concentrate on that power to move people. A guy named Tant Dowell lived in my neighborhood, and his band,The Monsters, were Nashville's finest. Although he was a couple of years older than me, he let me into there rehearsals because they were always borrowing my gear. Even though I was under aged, my friends Jimmy Lewis and Blanton Wooten could get me into the Briar Patch and hear The Allman Joys. Damn they were good, and they were funny.
Then in 1964, those clever Britts were imitating a lot of our R&B and doing a great job. A whole wave of British bands came along. In Memphis, there was that whole Stax thing going on and I just loved it. There was Wilson Pickett, Albert King, The BarKays, The Memphis Horns, Elvis and all that good barbeque. Motown was delivering the absolute best formulated R&B sound and I was just enthralled by The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, The Four Tops, and The Temptations. Phil Spector was making "The Wall of Sound" records with Martha and The Vandellas, The Ronettes, et al, and I just loved it all. Then the Beatles did Sgt. Pepper and the whole world changed.
Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Jack Bruce, and Stephen Stills were my main musical influences. They had musical integrity. Not only were these guys great guitarists, but they were great arrangers, songwriters, and producers.Back in 1968, my playing was starting to peak and everybody wanted to know how I did it. I was reluctant to show anyone, figuring they could do better by working at it like I did. There was this one kid who was friends with my schoolmates and he showed up at one of our rehearsals. Off in the corner, I heard him playing and though he had only been playing a couple of months, he was good. I said," Hey Stanley, you're getting pretty good, let me show you some stuff". I showed him some basic Pentatonic shapes and how to play through Majors and Minors and the grace notes that went with it. Well, he went home and locked himself in his room for 6 weeks, and when he came out, he could just blow me away. He was a natural. Stan Lassiter still lives in Nashville, and he became my teacher.