Steinberger GR4 (Lou Esposito)

This is a listing for a GR4, owned by renowned guitar player, Lou Esposito.

From the artist:

I was born on Staten Island, New York, in 1951. From day one, I was exposed to a lot of music. I was the youngest of seven kids, so there was a wealth of mostly rock and roll music around me. My earliest influences were Elvis, The Everly Brothers, The Ventures, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and many more. I felt myself gravitating toward Scotty Moore, the guitar player for Elvis. I would get goosebumps listening to him play. Mind you, I was only about five years old at the time. We had an old, beat-up guitar in the house that I would drag around because I couldn’t let it go. I wanted to learn how to play the guitar but had no one to teach me.

Now we’ll fast forward to the late ’50s. There was a ’50s group on Staten Island called The Elegants. They had a number one hit with Where Are You Little Star. That was a very big deal on Staten Island. What made it even better was that I knew the lead singer of The Elegants. His name is Vito Picone. He would play a major role in my life in the future.

When The Beatles and Beatlemania happened, I was totally hooked. I taught myself to play the guitar because I had to. I was always a very good natural singer, but guitar playing meant more to me.

Around 1966, my friend Perry Cianci said, “Lou, I have a friend I want you to meet—he works at Wetson’s Burgers.” The next day, we went there, and I saw this good-looking kid flipping burgers. My friend Perry said, “That’s him.” The burger flipper came out of the side door to greet us, and my friend introduced us. His name was Frankie Madeloni, AKA Earl Slick. We talked for a while, and he said that I should come down to a place called The Stadium on Main Street in Tottenville, SI, to hear his band Mack Truck play.

I was expecting a half-hearted kids’ band. What I heard, to this day, was the best live band I’ve ever heard. We became friends, and I pleaded with him to teach me some of the lead guitar stuff he was doing. He agreed but said, “We’re gonna do it like this: Tell me the things I’m doing that you want to learn, and I’ll come to the edge of the stage so you can watch my fingers.” Well, that worked very well. Frankie (Earl Slick) is the biggest musical influence of my life. I owe him everything.

As time went on, I met many more guitar players that I looked up to. We all became friends too—Jimmie Mack, Vinnie Zummo, Jack Cannon, Kasim Sulton, Vinny Ruzinsky, Stevie Coppolino. You may not know some of them, but they all deserve a wealth of praise. Eventually, Frankie went on to be David Bowie’s guitar player in 1974 and changed his name to Earl Slick. Kasim Sulton started playing bass for Todd Rundgren and Utopia in 1976, and Vinnie Zummo started playing for Joe Jackson.

I was extremely proud and excited for all of them, but I wanted that too. One day, I was talking to Kasim and said I wanted to take that next step as well. I asked him how I should go about that. I was surprised at what he told me. He said, “Get the Village Voice every Wednesday and look at the music classified section. Steer clear of the braggers, but look for ads that are to the point with what they want, and read between the lines.” The next Wednesday, I did just that and found an ad that fit the bill. The ad said something to the effect of, “Band with recording contract seeking a guitar player—call this number for details.”

Well, I called, and the person on the phone was very businesslike and told me to come to an address on Broadway in Manhattan. The person said to either bring a tape of myself playing or bring my guitar and play to a track. I opted to bring my guitar. I believe this was April of 1977. When I got there, I was blown away by the office. It was 100% showbiz. There were about 12 of us in a room waiting to be called into the interview room. Most of the other guys were dressed pretty sloppily. Thank God I listened to Slick’s advice when he said, “People want to hear what they don’t normally hear and see what they don’t normally see.” He was referring to the difference between locals and big-time acts.

When it was my turn to be interviewed, I looked great—I looked the part. The interviewer looked at me and smiled (I don’t remember his name). There was also an executive from, I believe, the record label. He asked me a lot of questions—if I liked Springsteen, if I was married, about my taste in music. He then took me to a room/studio to play on a blues-rock track that was missing the guitar part—that’s where I came in. That part went very well. He finally asked me where I was from, and I told him Staten Island. He asked me if I knew Kasim Sulton, to which I said, “We’re good friends.” He told me that Kasim was on the album and the name of the band was Meat Loaf. That didn’t mean much at the time because they were unknown.

When I was leaving the interview room, I hesitated out of view to see if there might be something said. The executive said, “I think you may have found your guy,” to which the interviewer said, “Could be.” With that, I left Manhattan and drove to Kasim’s house at about 100 miles per hour. I told Kasim what took place. Kaz asked me if I wanted it, and I said, “Absolutely.” He then went upstairs and made a call to the person who interviewed me. I overheard Kasim say, “My friend Lou Esposito left you about an hour ago, and he would love to get this.” Then Kaz said, “I understand, thank you.”

In my mind, I felt the interviewer probably said, “Well, let me go through the rest of the people,” but I was wrong. Kasim came downstairs to his basement and told me, “You got it.” I can’t begin to tell you how much I was blown away by this. Kasim, Earl, and I lived less than a mile away from each other, and now we were all in the same musical world.

Let’s jump ahead. In 1990, I was playing in a club called The Question Mark on Staten Island. I was part of a high-tech two-piece band that sounded like five guys. We were very popular and had a good following. The club was owned by Vito Picone of The Elegants. One night while we were on a break, he asked me if I wanted to join The Elegants, to which I said yes. Since The Elegants had a number one hit, we played a lot of great venues—Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden, Radio City, The Izod Center, and everything in between.

During my time with The Elegants, I bought a Steinberger GR4 from a friend of mine, mainly because it’s a great guitar that’s very easy to travel with. The guitar has been a dream to play, and the sound was fantastic. I played that guitar with a long list of well-known acts. I’ll list most of them: Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Felix Cavaliere, The Buckinghams, Johnny Farina (Sleep Walk), Mark Stein (Vanilla Fudge), Liberty DeVito (Billy Joel), The Teenagers, The Shangri-Las, and many more.

I also did 27 years with The Capris (There’s a Moon Out Tonight), playing shows with Bowser from Sha Na Na, and the list goes on. This guitar has major mojo. It never let me down. I’m at a point in my life where I’m weeding out a lot of my personal items, as hard as that is. I felt that my Steinberger GR4 deserved to be sold by the family it was born from. It deserves to see many more stages and venues. I hope I haven’t bored you with all of this.

—Lou