mid May/June ish.2023…Is it planning? Or is it random, then grasping the right opportunities that arise? … The joyous continuum of music and life.
I didn’t plan this journey. This experience of musicality I have been exposed to.
Listening and playing, playing and listening, and playing..
We all have our own unique set of circumstances.
The first one came from a jumble sale, I think yard sale is the term in the US. I was seven and a quick learner. My brother who was nine years older than me already had a guitar and he showed me a few simple, first position chords. From that moment, I was off!
Secondly, my father had a keen interest in music of all kinds and collected vinyl, without it seeming like a collection. In the mornings of every weekend and sometimes in between, our house was alive with it. From classical, musicals, country or folk, Cole Porter or Gershwin or Hoagy Carmichael or Ella Fitzgerald, Joan Baez or Jim Reeves. From Tchaikovsky to Fiddler on the roof, Woody Guthrie and flippin South Pacific. I disliked some of it; but now I admire and respect my father’s eclectic taste. It was a good grounding and fed my inquisitive nature to search out out new sounds and music.
In the mid 60s, my teenage brother started buying records that interested him – John Renbourn, Bert Jansch, Martin Carthy, Tom Paxton, Lead Belly, the Beatles, The Stones and a host of other stuff. Additional variety for my young ears.
The first album I bought with my pocket money was from the newsagents, — Pearl Bailey. A mistake, but to my 11-year-old self, she looked lovely on the sleeve and my mum cooked with Pearl Barley.
My early teens saw a foray into the rock music of the day, but acoustic guitar was always where my heart lay and what I feasted on.
The guitar became my passion and I played every day, almost without fail. It was such fun and I was lucky that I found it easy to listen to music and interpret what was going on. My brother was less enthusiastic, girls and motorbikes were the hook and he found the instrument more difficult to get on with. But with me, it has stayed. An ever constant companion and source of expression and joy.
When I was 12, in 1969, my brother knew someone in Runcorn, the next town, who could make a recording and get it transferred onto a 7 inch vinyl record. I recorded four tracks one evening. Here is 59 seconds of one of the songs. Those with masochistic tendencies and contact me for the full renditions!
https://vimeo.com/831213725The version of Donna Donna I had heard was on a Donovan record that was at home.
A few years later, I recorded some mess about tunes onto a cassette tape, but that has disappeared somewhere. Then, shortly before my Spinal Injury in 1974, I recorded some music on my recently acquired Yamaha 12 string guitar. I loved that instrument and my brother had a cheap reel to reel tape recorder that I used for the purpose. That recording
has also gone, but for very different reasons. When I was in hospital (I was forced to lay in bed for 9 months), listening to music through headphones was my escape. I remembered the recording I had made and asked my family to bring it in, so I could have a listen. As I have no finger movement, everyone around me, especially the qualified professionals repeatedly told me I would never be able to play the guitar again. So, in an attempt to erase the past I wiped the tape. A truly sad, unaware mistake.
When I was able to eventually return home, fortunately I couldn’t dispose of any of my instruments and after a year so I started to attempt to find a way of playing again. You won’t to be surprised to hear it took years. I think it’s my best achievement to date.
If I remember correctly, about six years after I returned home from the Spinal Unit, I was making
some music that sounded almost like music to me. I knew nothing about lap style guitar, but a bit like my childhood days, I sort of picked it up.
https://youtu.be/XavkjayLHQMBy the mid-1980s, I had been to university, had a new career, was driving a car with hand controls and living alone in my first house. I was also playing a guitar. I had bought a shiny Dobro guitar, which I thought was great, but on reflection sounded like a bag of spanners. This 2nd recording is from my first paid gig. March, 1987 at Leigh Folk Club. The man who ran the club, Steve Eckersley, recorded each guest artist on cassette.
This picture was taken at that performance by my friend Roy Nash… The audience were as warm as toast and I think I played for at least 90 minutes. Here are two snippets: Steve Eckersley’s wonderful introduction and 20 seconds of me, masochists know the drill by now!.
https://vimeo.com/830579844https://vimeo.com/830577807I carried on doing this sort of thing, just for fun and then, amongst other things, I had a musical life (and other) changing moments. The other challenges were that I needed to stop working because I was exhausted and my marriage of 7 years had come to a mutually agreeable end. I was temporarily able to work part time, but heading toward early retirement, living alone and turning to the guitar, hand cycling and keeping well.
So in 1998, I took myself to my first ever guitar instruction workshop. My first ever lesson. It was being held at the Wirral International guitar festival, which was about 40 miles away and was being run by someone called Woody Mann of whom I knew nothing. There were about 14 people attending the workshop, all finger style guitar players , except me. At the introduction, I apologised for my inability to play, was upset and close to leaving, but Woody reassured me and suggested I just played what I could, perhaps just a melody line.
A truly life changing day. After hearing me play, (just with him, during a break); Woody asked me if I would be able to attend a guitar seminar he was running with Bob Brozman, the following year at Columbia University in New York. Given my circumstances, a pending divorce and I had by now, left work, initially I didn’t think it was possible, but for the second time in that day he reassured me and made it clear that it would be in my musical interests. Secondly, he arranged for my attendance to be sponsored. I only needed to find airfare and expenses. His warmth, kindness and musicality shone. So started the journey towards my career as a musician.
My first CD, The Bell, a musical diary, was made shortly after my first trip to New York. The first track, Banty Rooster, was taught to me by Bob Brozman and played on that 12 string Yamaha guitar..
https://open.spotify.com/track/3A3IZPwVb7cz9ZqW1YocSFThat CD gained me some recognition, including live sessions on BBC National radio programmes.
Sadly, the majority of the tutors from IGS are no longer alive. Their music survives them, but they are sadly missed by all of us who were lucky enough to know and care about them.
The Continuum of Music.Sometimes to my amazement, I’m still here, still very active, bouncing along the bottom. 🙂 . Although I have kept to my decision not to play live performances since the Covid pandemic devastated the live music scene, there’s lots going on musically for me and it feels good…. I have released a live version of Eleanor Rigby, played in an arts Centre in Bahrain. I think it’s the best live version I’ve ever done and it is good enough for release. You can hear it here.
https://open.spotify.com/track/0v3S3m8kihRZdk4RY3Pu6jMy musical collaboration with my new friend Kostas will also bear fruit. We are working on several ideas at the moment and it is so enjoyable to know someone who has a very similar Spinal Injury to me and is also a musician. He understands how physically difficult this is, especially the guitar playing. Sadly, he hasn’t been able to play his guitars since being injured, but has learnt to compose and produce using computers. He mostly makes music for the media. I think he’s a bit good! 🙂
I have some more music in the pipeline to release. There is a version of the song that made me sit up and listen to a sound of slide I really liked. It was Leo Kottke playing ‘Louise’ , a song written by Paul Seibel. I first heard it in a house in Heidelberg in 1976. It was also the song I played at the student concert that first year I went to New York . It holds very special memories for me. There’s a new instrumental, too, to be released in a month or so. I think I will call it Kolkata blues. It’s played on my 1927 National guitar with Matt Owens playing a baseline. Here’s a snippet of the ending.
https://vimeo.com/831854535There are two other tracks I’m working on and a couple of things providing accompaniment on recordings for friends, so plenty of musical ideas swimming about in the ether.
Listening and Reading..
