In March of 1969, a one-year-old Sumner Estes was home at his apartment in Morgantown, WV. and completely unaware that his life was about to change. No longer to be the center of attention for his doting parents, he was now somebody’s brother. He studied the child that his parents had named Christopher with perplexed fascination. And then he promptly poked him in the eye. Thus began a long road for young Chris to take revenge on his brother and embarrass him in whatever way possible. Retribution for this egregious offense was to be visited upon Sumner somehow, somewhere, someday. What would embarrass his brother the most? It would have to be something spectacular and involve some kind of celebrity and public adulation. Chris started playing guitar while in college at the University of South Carolina. It seemed to him that he had always wanted to play guitar. At least, ever since hearing Paul McCartney sing “Yesterday”. Never mind that that song was written on a piano…we’re thinking like an 8-year-old here, folks. His thoughts often strayed to the idea of being a rock star with an electric guitar and thousands of girls screaming his name and baring various body parts while he “rocked out” on stage for the adoring fans. Again, never mind that “Yesterday” wasn’t exactly a rocking-out kind of song. So, Chris set about learning the guitar. His first guitar a student classical actually belonged to his younger sister, Nancy who his parents had decided should learn to play guitar. But for Nancy, playing guitar meant painful fingertips AND having to keep her nails short. And so ended her not-so-promising endeavor to bring the musical lilt of a $20 nylon string guitar to the unwashed masses. But their loss was Chris’ gain. He took this guitar (which had been sitting in a closet for close to 10 years) and started awkwardly feeling his way through the Grateful Dead songbook. In some earlier years, he had found a greater love of music through the improvisational jams of the Grateful Dead. Chris doggedly pursued this course and moved his way up to a new guitar. One with metal strings and a much thinner neck…an Ibanez ‘59er. Now, this guitar did have strings and it did have a nice neck, but that was about it. It had no pickups, a semi-hollow body and no finish on it. But the price was right, so he discarded his faithful nylon guitar and set about his road to rock superstardom.