Thought I needed to have a picture of my original owner since new ‘66 Starfire II with my Gurian J-R (Jumbo Rosewood) acoustic that I bought new at Sam Ash, Hempstead, NY (Long Island) in either late 1974 or a bit later in 1975.
As per usual there’s a story that goes along with the Gurian. I spent about 2 years “living off the fat of the land” after college starting in June 1972 traveling between east coast NYC area, Midwest, and ending up in Vancouver, BC (Canada). That year I put 25,000 miles on my Chevy Nova with a bunch of my college “low lifes” with gasoline as little as 19.9 cents/gallon in Colorado. To make a long story short, I decided to make the next year’s journey with a college friend hitchhiking from NYC area to Vancouver, liberating myself from the car. I got in with the local Vancouver music scene upon which I got turned on to “acoustic” after being only “electric” with my Starfire.
I spent some time in Vancouver music stores buying strings for one of my gracious hosts that let me play his acoustic guitar (my style being a bit rough compared to other acoustic players, bending strings and vibrato, etc.) I checked out all the guitars to compare sound wise and playability - Guild, Martin, Gibson, Ovation, and a few others. There was one guitar that stood out from both sound and playability, it was the Gurian.
It’s shown with a new DiMarzio pickup that replaced the old one that developed a short in the integral cord at the pickup that I discovered as I was getting ready to record a track in a studio, I fixed it by tapping on the pickup and then played away….
Indian Rosewood back and sides (the model would be a “J-B-R” if the rosewood was Brazilian), ebony fretboard, spruce top
