A lifelong vintage-guitar nut who has had “a million guitars,” Jeremy Graf’s all-time favorite is this 1961 Stratocaster.
A native of Knoxville, Tennessee, Graf was just seven when, for reasons he doesn’t remember, he asked for an Elvis Presley record. His mother obliged and brought home Elvis’ Golden Records, a compilation of ’50s hits.
“That was my introduction to the world of rock, rhythm and blues, blues, and rockabilly,” he laughed. “From that point, I was a so into Elvis that my grandmother suggested to my parents that I should see a doctor.” (laughs)
Opposite of nearly every other Babyboomer, when the Beatles landed in ’64, young Jeremy was disinterested, still wrapped in his Elvis fixation. He asked for a guitar and was given a beginner Silvertone acoustic that was, “…impossible to play, not helped by the fact that I couldn’t play anyway.”
Two years later, things changed when Rick Heinrichs and his family moved to town.
“Rick and his brother, Mark, had great-playing Guild acoustics and a Beatles songbook with pictures of the chords,” Graf recalled. “All of a sudden, I could make music, and I was hooked. For my next birthday, I asked for new Epiphone Casino.”
He signed up for lessons with (by chance) the brother of musical comedian and mandolin legend Jethro Burns.
“All he wanted to do was tell stories about Chet Atkins, and all I cared about was the Beatles, so I lasted three lessons,” he said with a chuckle.
At 13, Graf convinced his parents to let him take a bus, alone, to see the Miami Pop Festival in December of ’68, where he saw Marvin Gaye, Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, Terry Reid, and the Grateful Dead. The following year, he attended the Atlantic City Pop Festival and the West Palm Beach Pop Festival, which featured the Rolling Stones. The immersion fed his guitar jones, big-time.
“I’ve loved so many players through the years – Jeff Beck, Leslie West, Mick Ronson, Brian May, Jim McCarty, Robin Trower, and always, B.B. King,” he said.
By 16, he was playing in a rock trio doing tunes by Cactus, Deep Purple, Jeff Beck Group, and others. In 1971, he bought a ’64 SG Standard from a classmate.
“I was hooked!” he said. “I loved everything about that guitar, including its beautiful form-fitted case with that marigold lining.
“Inspired by that guitar, I soon realized that I could make good money buying and selling cool old guitars, and I’d get to experience them. So if I wasn’t playing, I was out looking. I have a list of my first 50.”
After graduating from high school in the spring of ’73, he traveled to London, looking to absorb its musical culture for a few months while swinging a deal or two; he took a Les Paul Custom to sell and bought two 100-watt heads – a Marshall and a Hiwatt – which he shipped home. While there, he saw the famous Crystal Palace performance by Beck Bogert & Appice, caught The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, and David Bowie with Mick Ronson filming a bit for “The Midnight Special” at the Marquee Club.
Back in Knoxville by early ’74, he reconnected with the bass player and vocalist from his previous band, who had formed a band with a high-school kid named Jerry Riggs. They invited Graf aboard and started playing school dances and clubs. By year’s end, they had become Lynx and they signed with an agent who booked them in clubs throughout the south.
“It was a fantastic time to be in a band,” he remembered. “We worked steadily for the next few years, playing heavy two-guitar songs that we loved and went over well – Nazareth, Sweet, Thin Lizzy, Queen, ZZ Top. In Florida, it seemed like every city had at least two rock clubs.”
When the band returned to play a night in Knoxville in early ’78, a friend told Graf about an old Strat at a pawn shop an hour away in Athens, Tennessee.
“The next morning, I raced there to check it out,” he said. “It was a ’61, hanging in the front of the store, and I was immediately taken by its cool vibe. It wasn’t great, playing-wise, but I figured I was just spoiled by all the great old Gibsons I’d been playing. It was only $175, so I bought it.
“The first thing I did was take it to my favorite luthier, Peter Jones, in Atlanta, and had him level the fretboard and install new frets. When he was done, it played perfectly.”
But at the next band rehearsal…
“I plugged it into my old small-box Marshall 50-watt and was appalled by its sound,” he laughed. “It was scratchy, noisy, and just… thin! I’d been playing a great, fat-sounding Les Paul Custom, so it didn’t compare. But when Jerry plugged it into his 100-watt Marshall running through an early Boss CE-1, the Strat sounded incredible. It he clear he that had found his sound.”
In mid ’78, Graf and Riggs moved to Atlanta to join friends in a band called Raggedy Anne, which opened for AC/DC fronted by Bon Scott, UFO with Michael Schenker, Judas Priest, Rush, The Babies, and many others.
“We were managed by Nazareth’s management and did a demo with their guitarist, Manny Charlton,” Graf recalled. “When it failed to secure a record deal, our front man, Don Train, left, and we formed Riggs. By the end of 1980, we had a deal with Irving Azoff’s Full Moon label, which was aligned with Warner Brothers.”
The label connected Riggs to producer Roy Thomas Baker, who helped them record two songs – “Heartbeat” and “Radar Rider” – that were used on the soundtrack to the 1981 animated feature film Heavy Metal (the latter accompanied the film’s opening sequence). The following year, Riggs recorded an album with Andy Johns.
Riggs played Graf’s Strat on everything the band recorded, and when their deal ended in ’83, Riggs accepted a gig with The Pat Travers Band. Knowing the Strat was basically part of him, Graf let him take it along.
In early ’85, Graf moved to Los Angeles, where he worked for a courier service before being hired to assist with random tasks in the studio at Virgin Records, where Warren Zevon was recording Sentimental Hygiene. When that was finished, Graf was hired to run the shipping department for the new label.
In ’86, the Pat Travers Band played the Roxy in Hollywood, and Graf was there, excited to see his old friend – and the guitar.
“I was surprised to see Jerry using his red early-’60s Strat, and mine was the backup,” he said. “He had put EMGs in his and it sounded great, so I figured it was time to reclaim the ’61.”
Shortly after, his old Atlanta friends The Georgia Satellites were in Los Angeles to do “American Bandstand.” Being a fan of “Jerry’s” Strat, Richards asked to borrow the ’61 for the show. Graf was happy to oblige.
In 1994, Graf and his girlfriend, Karrie, moved back to Atlanta, where they got married and he became a member of the Satellites. For two years, he toured the U.S. and played festivals in Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, and Switzerland, the ’61 Strat being his main axe, providing a counterpoint to Richards’ Les Paul Junior. They recorded an album in Denmark and played “Hippy Hippy Shake” and “Slaughterhouse” on the Danish TV.
After his stint in the Satellites, the Grafs moved to Chicago, where Jeremy stayed busy playing weekends in the lounge at the House of Blues Hotel. He then worked in music stores until their son, Tyler, was born, after which he became a stay-at-home dad for Tyler and their daughter, Madeline. The next decade saw him focused on family life.
In 2014, he assembled a band called The Instrumentalists, which worked up instrumental versions of songs with famous melodies. He followed that with another band, The Fundamentals, also doing strictly instrumentals.
“I still use the Strat whenever the opportunity arises,” he said. “Tyler, who is now 21 and quite the jazz drummer, will jam with me when he’s home from the Jazz Conservatory at Oberlin College, which extremely rewarding.” – Ward Meeker
The ’61 Strat can be seen being played by Jeremy Graf on Youtube; search for “Georgia Satellites Denmark.” Jerry Riggs uses his red Strat in his current gig with 38 Special.
This article originally appeared in VG’s May 2025 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
