I've been playing for 40 years. Part of that time was semi-pro in bands as the lead guitarist (along with lead and backing vocals), that played some pretty heavy music. I've gotten more eclectic musically as I've gotten older (I'm 55), but while I love jazz when playing clean, I still love my high gain tones, and have a tendency to crank the gain up on my amp, when playing dirty.
I almost had to quit playing in 2014, when I got horrible dermatitis (it was all over my body - one of my coworkers said I looked like a burn victim), that was traced to a severe allergy to nickel (guess what almost all guitar frets have in them?), and a major allergy to chromium, which is used in stainless steel. As a result, ANY guitar I buy has to be refretted with hypoallergenic fretwire (Jescar EVO Gold). Refretting is not cheap (it costs me $350-$450 per guitar, and I've spent thousands on it), so no more cheap thrills guitars (I can't economically justify refretting them), and so long with buying guitars on a lark, and flipping them a few months later if I find out I don't like them - I'd end up in the poor house, when you throw in the cost of refretting the "flipped" guitars. So, I think long and hard before I buy guitars.
I'm finally once again at a good place gearwise. I sold off all of my good pro-grade gear by 2000, due to needing the money for transition costs, and just to pay the bills in general. Once things settled down after SRS, I started gear recovery from the cheapo guitars I had bought during transition, so I'd have something to play. Figuring I had an opportunity/clean slate to explore different guitar options (amps were a different story - I've always known what I want in amps for a very long time, brutal [but not shrill] high gain tones, and warm, jazzy cleans), I experimented with different guitar options (post transition, I owned a fair amount of Gretsches [no, I didn't do rockabilly, and do not play Chet Atkins infused country music], I still have a soft spot for Fender Jaguars, and I've come to feel that the Tele is the Swiss army knife of guitars - jazz, metal, rock country?, no problem for a Tele!). Some experiments were successful, some not so much. The nickel allergy & need to refret guitars slowed the guitar experimentation down to almost nothing, but I'm pretty happy with the Taylor 12-string I have, Blueridge 12-fret clone of a Martin 000, Fender 60s Baja Tele, and Gibson ES-137 (I was a Gibson Girl for a long time - they were my main electrics from the early 80s until 1999) I have at the present time.
I'd LOVE to get in a band again, but that became difficult at best when I moved to where my current job is, and plugging back into the musicians network became almost impossible to do. Also throw in my age (I'm 55, and I DON'T want to play country, da blues, or klassic rawk in a mom & dad band - I wanna rock hard!), and the options are limited at best (the last band I auditioned for 6 years ago, left me feeling a big, fat "meh"), so I satisfy myself at the present time, by playing my Taylor 12-string in the church band.
My cousin (from my dad's youngest brother), and I may end up being the last generation of guitar players in the family (grandpa was Guitar Generation #1 [he played in jazz bands and was an acoustic guitar luthier - he made me my first guitar when I was little!], and my cousin's dad was/is Guitar Generation #2 [I'm not even sure he plays anymore, since I saw some YouTube vids of my cousin chunking away on my uncle's guitars]), since none of what would be the 4th generation guitar-wise have any interest whatsoever in playing guitar (though one of my nephews does play piano and keyboard).
Play On,
Ellen
