Stories about musicians
There is a joke: “If you can remember the sixties, you probably weren’t there.” But there was a day in December 1969 I can remember well. A dear friend forwarded me the picture shown on this page and recognised my then 20 year old mug in the crowd. I’m sure Henry Diltz took this picture. … Read more
A longtime friend who moved from Colorado to Florida recently posed a question about the current state of the music industry. Good friends can inspire thoughts, and following are some of mine. He included a quote by Joni Mitchell: “I heard someone from the music business saying they are no longer looking for talent, they … Read more
For the past month, I’ve had this Paul Simon song rolling through my head. As with many of us, a tune or song will get in my head and stay there for a day or so. This song is more persistent, calling to me several times a day, and I could not figure out why… until this … Read more
Few people on this planet have not heard the guitar work of Robert Willie White. Until a few years ago I was among the multitudes of fans who had no clue about who he was. He was a member of the Funk Brothers, a group of musicians who played on more No. 1 records than … Read more
Before reading on, listen to this clip: I’ve always loved the snappy electric guitar in Neil Diamond’s original recording of this song. These riffs continue throughout the entire recording, but I could never find out who played them. Remove the guitar from this recording and the song would suffer. A year ago, a web search … Read more
My preparations to move on from a home that has been a family shelter since 1961 has turned up several surprises. The most recent one was in a shoe box of old cassette tapes, only one of which interested me. The tape contained a collection of music I made around 1979, and I was a … Read more
Back in the late 70’s, when playing music was still an important part of my life, I discovered a group of musicians playing an interesting brand of fused blues, bluegrass and jazz. They called themselves the “Newgrass Revival”. I was playing guitar and mandolin at the time, and one of the main players was an … Read more
I’ve always had the greatest respect and admiration for songwriters. My views on them took shape in the late 1960s when I immersed myself in learning to play guitar. In the learning of songs, I recognised it was the authors I became most interested in. While it was (and still is) the performers that garnered … Read more
