John Primer grew up loving the guitar, but it took a while for him to have his own.
An uncle made one on the side of the house in Mississippi with nails and wire when Primer was two or three years old, in the late 1940s. "I liked the sound," he said in a recent phone interview. "I loved it." He'd lie on the floor, looking at guitars in catalogs.
By the time he was five, he said, he was playing the side-of-the-home guitar, "when they go to the field or something."
At about that time, he said, he ordered one for $7 or so, but "I never did get it." It was at the post office, cash on delivery, and "I didn't have no money. My mom, she was out of town, working ... . She didn't come back in time to get it, so they sent it back. That broke my heart."
