“My friend talked to a roadie, and they said to come back the next day to meet at Steve Howe’s hotel room in downtown Detroit”: When he was a teen, Duane Denison tried to sell a vintage jazz box to one of his guitar heroes
Denison had grown up idolizing prog rock shredders – then one day he found himself attempting to convince one of them to buy a rare Guild guitar
(Image credit: Getty Images / Elizabeth Gregory)
The punk-tinged anarchy of The Jesus Lizard’s music may feel a world away from prog rock’s intricate, genre-and-math-bending acrobatics, but Duane Denison holds both dear to his heart. So, the day he found himself standing in Steve Howe’s hotel room trying to sell him an electric guitar lives long in his memory.
Speaking in the new issue of Guitar World, the guitarist says he grew up idolizing the finger-blurring talents of prog’s elite, even if he didn’t quite go down that route with his own musical endeavors.
“When I was a teenager, it was the ’70s, and so prog rock was king. I’m not ashamed to admit that I loved it,” he says proudly. “Punk rock hadn’t come along yet. The shredders of my day were Robert Fripp, Jan Akkerman and Steve Howe.”
Denison ended up meeting Howe when he was just 17. It was the mid ‘70s, Yes were at the height of their powers, and so Denison did what every teenage guitarist would do when they had the chance to meet their hero: sell him a guitar.
“We tried to sell him a guitar when Yes came through Detroit,” he remembers. “A friend of mine worked at a guitar shop that carried rare archtop jazz guitars, and there was a Guild George Barnes acoustic-electric.”
Barnes was a renowned swing jazz guitarist, typically found playing the kind of archtops with which Howe would usher in Yes’ wide array of riffs. So, it was a fair match.
Howe has previously explained to GW why he won't play unfamiliar guitars these days but back then it was a different story, and it seems as though he may have had his head slightly turned by the offer.
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“This friend was really pushy and talked to a roadie, and they said to come back the next day to meet at Steve Howe’s hotel room in downtown Detroit. He tried it out and played some stuff on it, but he didn’t buy it.”
While the sales pitch didn’t quite work, Howe (at least on paper) represented the ideal customer. After all, his guitar collection includes some weird and wonderful instruments.
His semi-hollow Gibson ES-175D – an unconventional rock guitar he acquired way back in 1964 – may be the guitar he’s most closely associated with, but he’s also owned and played Strats, Les Pauls, a 12-string Steinberger GM headless guitar, and more. Denison wasn’t crazy thinking the Guild Georges Barnes may just take his fancy.
Head to Magazines Direct to pick up a copy of the new GW, which includes chats with Grace Bowers, Matteo Mancuso, and more, as players weigh in with their favorite music and gear releases in 2024.
A freelance writer with a penchant for music that gets weird, Phil is a regular contributor to Prog, Guitar World, and Total Guitar magazines and is especially keen on shining a light on unknown artists. Outside of the journalism realm, you can find him writing angular riffs in progressive metal band, Prognosis, in which he slings an 8-string Strandberg Boden Original, churning that low string through a variety of tunings. He's also a published author and is currently penning his debut novel which chucks fantasy, mythology and humanity into a great big melting pot.
