Aging & Wisdom Quote by Ronnie Montrose

There is a quiet anti-myth in Montrose's recollection: the guitar hero origin story, stripped of destiny and replaced with borrowing, waiting, and making do. The sentence lurches forward on repetition - "shared", "played", "played" - like someone riffling through a mental gear closet. That rhythm matters. It mirrors the way a lot of musicians actually come up: not through some pristine first instrument, but through whatever is within reach, passed hand to hand, half-setup, slightly out of tune, carrying other people's fingerprints.

The brand-name specificity does cultural work. A Silvertone and a Danelectro 12-string aren't luxury symbols; they're working-class icons, mail-order or budget-friendly, the kind of instruments that end up in basements and pawn shops. By naming them, Montrose signals a scene and an economy: late-60s rock aspiration without the moneyed polish, where access is communal and the barrier to entry is real. You hear the unglamorous logistics behind the glamour.

Then comes the kicker: "about age 17" before he "actually started playing". It's disarming because it undercuts the romantic idea that the greats were born with a guitar strapped on. Montrose isn't bragging; he's calibrating. The subtext is permission. You can begin late, you can begin imperfectly, you can begin on someone else's instrument, and still become the person people cite as a touchstone. In a culture obsessed with prodigies, Montrose is quietly arguing for the long haul.