Another day of guitar stuff in Bakersfield. I drove up to attend the memorial service of my guitar buddy Chuck Long (most everybody in Bakersfield knew Chuck), a service attended by almost all of the Bakersfield guitar crew who are still with us—Eugene Moles, Brian Lonbeck, Marc Lipco, Roger, Teddy and Theresa Spanke, Tony Brown, Sonny Anglin, and a few others I’m forgetting.
After the service I went over to Roger Spanke’s house and interviewed him about his time working at the original Mosrite factory from 1966 to 1968 and again in the 1972–74 era. He also showed me a cool guitar that Semie Moseley made for him: a small-bodied Ventures model (basically a Mark V that Semie shaped to be more like the Ventures-style bodies). Semie adorned the headstock with his name: ROGER. Roger traded off the guitar forty years ago, then his brother-in-law Tony Brown (who also makes fine and cool guitars here in Bakersfield under the name “T and T Custom Guitars”) found it on eBay and got it back in Roger’s hands. Roger also had a neat Mosrite acoustic guitar and a one-off 1970s-era Mosrite electric tenor guitar that was made for a local church lady, with a flower-power foil overlay headstock!
It was also great to hang and talk with Theresa Spanke (herself a great Bakersfield singer, at one time managed by Billy Mize) and her husband, Tony Brown. They had an amazing collection of guitars and amps at their place, too! Bakersfield really is a guitar town! More photography and research planned for tomorrow…
Special thanks to Eugene and Sabrina Moles for taking care of Chuck Long in the last part of his life. They really went above and beyond for the guy.
