I’ve never made my living by making music, but music has always been in my life. I grew up in Minneapolis, the oldest of four. My father listened to country western radio and he had taught himself how to play the guitar while serving in the Army Air Corps. After the war he bought a beautiful new Gretsch “Synchromatic” archtop guitar. He would play songs that my mom knew and they would sing and then the kids would learn the songs and soon we’d all be singing. One Saturday morning I sang on the Jimmy Valentine show on KSTP Channel 5 and I won a bicycle. One day when I was 6 Dad came home with a small guitar and told me it was mine. We tuned up the strings and he showed me simple, one finger chords: C, F, G. Dad handed me some sheet music from songs I had heard on the radio. I already knew the tunes, so I just read the words and followed the chords above. It seemed so easy. I learned a bunch of songs that way and kept playing more. Fo...