Few people know that yours truly spent a year in the seminary at Holy Cross Seminary in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. you see, my older brother John was already a Junior by then, and the Sisters of St. Francis at St. Joe's in Menomonie thought that it would be "special" if there were two Heagle boys in the priesthood. Being raised Catholic and consequently having no idea what the term"free will" meant, I dutifully signed up at the end of my eighth grade year, lest I bring the wrath of God and the entire faculty down upon my country boy head.
Well, thankfully, by Spring, I figured out that there were no girls there and I quit. In actuality I was asked to leave, so then I quit. I am thankful for one thing that I learned at the seminary, a love for the guitar. My friend (and fellow seminarian at the time) Jim Burkhart got me interested in the instrument.
My first guitar of any value was a Harmony Sovereign. It was an all solid wood guitar, spruce and mahogany, and it was huge! The lower bout measured 16 inches across so the bass register was pretty impressive. I lost that guitar to a "bar mishap" while in college and by then Harmony guitars weren't "cool" enough for folkies like me. One had to at least have a Gibson or the Holy Grail, a Martin.
This past Winter I began ruminating over that first good Harmony guitar and decided I would start looking for an exact duplicate to the first one I ever had. Where better to locate it than on eBay. I had no experience in the pitfalls of being an eBay'er and consequently there were several false starts before I finally landed my Harmony. It is in the accompanying photo with the natural spruce top and what's really eerie is that this particular guitar was manufactured in the Fall of 1959 which was the beginning of my senior year in high school at Menomonie High, about the same time I bought my first one.
It has the same familiar booming bass register of my original, and although it is just under 50 years old, it is in pretty good shape! Trouble is, now I knew I was hooked! Several months went by and then I located the tobacco sunburst Silvertone guitar that you see in the picture. Yes, I said Silvertone, the house brand name for all Sears and Roebuck goods having anything to do with music. It is, in fact, a Harmony made guitar, as Harmony jobbed out to Sears, Montgomery Wards (Airline) and even Fender in their early stages.
I'm afraid I am now a full-fledged Harmony junkie! The little guitar next to the other two is an all mahogany H165 which has an entirely different yet delightful tone.
Some other time I will show you the Harmony 1270 12 string guitar that is also part of the collection. It is presently in pieces under the loving care of Gordy Bischoff, guitar builder extraordinaire (www.bischoffguitars.com) as it was in much need of a neck set.
Now I am keeping an eye out for a Harmony archtop. Harmony made lots of those over the years. Unfortunately, as the Delbert McClinton song goes: "Nothin' Lasts Forever", and in the 1970's Harmony sold the name to the Japanese, so If you find a Harmony guitar for sale, make certain that somewhere it says "made in the USA" as they dropped in quality with the sale.
Several months ago, I discovered that there is a website for those who collect "The People's Guitar" (a name given to Harmony guitars because they were produced in such abundance at nominal prices that many of us started learning guitar on a Harmony). If you are interested, simply type harmony+forum in your search engine and follow directions.
Also, if you are just interested in seeing how prolific The Harmony Guitar Company of Chicago really was, type: http://harmony.demont.net into your browser. I think you will be pretty impressed!
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