INQUIRER PHIL MANZANERA

THE LONGTIME ROXY MUSIC GUITARIST TALKS OBSCURE GEAR, EARLY GIGS AND EMBARRASSING ON-STAGE MOMENTS

What was your first guitar? 

It was a Cuban guitar my mother bought to teach herself to play in Havana, Cuba, in 1957. It’s a beautiful little nylon-string guitar that has travelled with me my whole life — and I’ve also used it on records. I was about seven and because I kept wanting to touch it, she ended up teaching me how to play some “acompañamiento,” which means a style of playing that goes “under” songs, and that’s how I started playing. Later when I was 10, I was given £5 as a birthday present by my parents and I used it as the deposit for a red Hofner Galaxie, which I still have.

What were the first songs you learned to play?

Cuban and Latin songs, what they call evergreen songs, which are still played today in the Spanish-speaking world. The songs had nothing to do with rock, as it was mainly music from South America. The first song I learned from start to finish was “Cielito Lindo.” When I lived in Venezuela, a British boy showed me how to play R&B like Chuck Berry and that was it. I was converted to rock ’n’ roll and begged my parents to send me to London. I was 9!

Do you remember the first gig you ever played?