Johnny Gidley, a farm boy from Salado, Texas, grew up listening to The Beatles and the rock & roll of the 50's and 60's. He formed his first band with high school classmates Berry Evans, Tom Brown and Harold Mersiovsky in 1964. His dad had bought a cheap guitar for 5.00 from an old black man who lived in a nearby town. He had wanted one of his sons to learn to play it while he played his fiddle. However, neither Johnny nor his two brothers, Tom and Wayne, had enough desire to learn it until Johnny saw The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. As soon as the show was over, he immediately went into his bedroom, pulled the old guitar from its hiding place in the closet and did not put it down for three solid months. He still owns that guitar to this day and you can see it and his other guitars on his website (www.johnnygidley.com)
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