Old Guy Plays Guitar

I was a fortunate young man. I grew up in a comfortable home with lots of music and sang in a choir or two (now there’s a cliché) where I heard lots more music. Think from Shirley Bassey to Leonard Bernstein and many things in between.

I got my first guitar in high school and quickly became obsessed. Classical lessons and some exams, alongside listening to an expanding range of styles.

Then came college. By now I was playing guitar, well enough to get in a band or two. Alongside my regular gig (The Sheep are Nervous, the last word in Irish Folk Punk music, whatever The Pogues may tell you), one of the singers asked me to play in my first blues band: Blind Lemon Illingworth and his Gentlemen of Blues. Even though I didn’t even know who Blind Lemon was then, Mr P J Burnell, I thank you. I kept good company and heard about mysterious figures like Robert Johnson, BB King…
Time moved on and college became a happy memory. The friend who introduced me to Robert Johnson also introduced me to jazz, and I came to appreciate them both as two sides of the same musical coin - as someone once said, we’ve all got the same twelve notes (unless your into microtones, in which case you may not find much to your taste around here , apart from the occasional bent note).

Life happened and I have been fortunate to have a wonderful family and a steady job. I still play and appreciate different “styles” of music -whatever that means. I sometimes like to pretend I can play a mean tremolo , or that I know where a good flat five substitution should be. And I still like to bend a mighty blue note and singing about the eternal themes of humanity - life, love, death, intoxication in its many forms.
Whatever we may think makes us different, all of these various “styles” of music speak to us of how much we have in common. And in these troubled times, I will gladly raise a glass to that.