My first attendance at CAAS was 1991. It was an unbelievable experience to say the least.
On the first or second day, I was sitting in a hallway playing through my arrangement of Mr. Sandman when a small group of gentlemen stopped to listen. One of the guys approached me and said he liked the arrangement. He didn’t have a guitar with him at that time so we traded my guitar back and forth and exchanged thoughts and ideas on the arrangement. He then shook my hand, said he enjoyed my playing, and he and his friends moved on down the hall. A few other guys then approached me and said, “Do you know how that is?.....It’s Marcel Dadi!” At that point a flood of nerves rippled through my body. I knew of Marcel but had never seen any pictures of him. Thank God I didn’t know it was him or I would never have been able to play a single note! :-/
This was also the year that I got to meet Chet for the first time. I was so nervous I could hardly speak. I shook his hand, told him what an inspiration he had been in my life and asked him sign my Gibson Chet CEC.
Tough both of these meetings were brief I consider them to be major high points of my life. My only regret is that I did not have a camera with me to capture these moments.
I consider myself very fortunate to have been able to attend many of those early conventions. Getting to see live performances by Chet, Jerry, Marcel, Tommy Jones, and so many other guitar greats has been and experience that is beyond words.
Kirk