Remembering Robert Willie White

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

Thank The Lord For The Night Time

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 Missoula Lifestyle 1979

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

Who is Mark O’Connor and Why Should We Care?

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

Save The Last Dance

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