Today is guitar genius Jean Baptiste “Django” Reinhardt’s 100th birthday.

Treat yourself and listen to some of this music. Django was incredible — and only had two usable fingers on his left hand (that’s the hand that makes chords). Django is on my short list of greatest guitar players of all time.

Seriously, take a few minutes and play some tracks below…

Underrated guitarists:

Bruce Cockburn – amid the pretentious sing-talking poetry about rain-forests and rocket launchers, this guy plays some fucking amazing acoustic guitar. His folksy stuff from 1970-1974 is some of the best acoustic folk guitar playing you can find from that era. Cockburn is of the caliber of the John Fahey Tokoma Records troupe, but rarely associated with the other finger-picking masters from the time.

Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) – Again, for his acoustic playing. Listen to the acoustic work on Aqualung (the album, not the song) — that’s all Anderson. He was great. Flute schmute.

Paul McCartney – the best guitar player in the Beatles.

Buck Dharma (Blue Oyster Cult) – I’ll let Casey tell everyone why.

Walter Becker (though Steely Dan had so many sit-in players, I’m never sure who’s playing what when).

whoever the guitar player in Ram Jam was. I just heard Black Betty on the radio and that guy rocked it.

You should do an overrated guitar player list!

The first of these was called “Scrambled Eggs” and was about the simple joy of eating… scrambled eggs. The second one was an anthem dedicated to tangy, processed Velveeta cheese.

Audio cassette recordings of these gems existed at one point, though I’d be hard pressed to find copies now, but last night my friend Eric emailed me a link to a digital copy of a performance of “Velveeta” recorded sometime between 1994 and 1998. It brought me right back.

Click here to experience the delicious, drunken three-part harmony of this cheesy anthem.

Time built highly engineered, beautiful hand made guitars in Waltham, Burlington and South Burlington, Vermont in the 1970s and 80s.

I’m writing this post because this is the thing that’s occupying a lot of my extra-curricular interest right now, but also because I’m discovering a lot of vague rumors, questions and misinformation out there on the intertubes regarding the company and I’m hoping to tweak the SEO for “Time Guitars” so that curious Googlers will get accurate information. A wikipedia page might just be in the offing.

So if you have found this post looking for info about Time because you own one or you want to own one or you’re a die-hard Phish head who wants to know about the band’s connection to Time, or you’re just curious about these lovely hand made Vermont gems, here are a couple of links to get you the info you’re after…

Chris Clark started working at Time in the 70s as a high school student. He became the general manager at Time after the company’s founder, Alan Stack, left in 1984. He has set up the Time Guitars Owners Forum, which includes a company history, a model identification guide and plenty of opportunities for owners, former employees and fans to share stories, photos and serial numbers. This is your first and best resource for info on Time guitars.

Phish sound man and guitar builder, Paul Languedoc, worked at Time from 1982 to 1986 when the company closed up shop. Currently, Paul builds and sells astoundingly beautiful guitars (still using some of the techniques he learned at Time) in his workshop in Vermont.

There is a facebook group for fans of these guitars too. If you’re on facebook, search the groups for “Time Guitar Fans.”

If you’re still confused or looking for more/different information, feel free to drop me a line and I’ll try and point you in the right direction.

I’m writing this post because I think I’m one of the luckiest guitar players in the world.

I’ve played a lot of guitars in my life. I’ve probably owned 15 of them over the years (of varying brands and types) and if you count guitars I’ve played in music stores and ones that belong to friends, I’ve played hundreds of the things. About 10 years ago I picked up an electric guitar that was the finest electric guitar I’d ever played. It was a Time guitar, manufactured in a small factory in South Burlington, Vermont sometime in the 80s. (Time made overly engineered and under-priced guitars and basses and were only in business for a short while — Phish played them early on and one of the luthiers at Time — Paul Languedoc — became Phish’s sound man and custom guitar builder.) I bought it. It cost me $525 used. I still own it and it is still the nicest electric (in terms of tone and playability) that I’ve ever plugged into an amp.

Owning the nicest electric guitar I’ve ever played makes me one darn lucky guitar owner. Not many players can say that. Well, as of a couple of weeks ago, I now own the nicest acoustic guitar I’ve ever played.

My brother Rob lives in Naples, Florida with a luthier named Donny Heyser (he used to have a web site but I can’t find it now). Donny makes crazy-beautiful guitars and for years, whenever I would visit Rob, I would inevitably wind up spending hours playing this one particular acoustic. I absolutely loved it. After a while, Donny and Rob just started calling it “Bill’s guitar.”

I have owned Taylors, Martins, Washburns, Ovations, Guilds… and I’ve played hundreds of acoustic guitars. I have never loved one as much as this. It’s tone is bright and balanced, it’s action is smooth, light and buttery (almost like an electric) and it is a gorgeous piece of woodwork.

This Christmas, Rob purchased the guitar for me. I now literally own the two best guitars I’ve ever played. I’ll never be a rock star (or a famous finger-style acoustic instrumentalist/folk singer), but few actual working musicians can make that claim.

Pictures are below. The top photo is of the three guitars hanging on my office wall. The Time is on the right, the Heyser custom is in the middle. The Batman guitar on the left was another gift from Rob — an electric he built for me in Donny’s shop. Below are detail shots of the Heyser…