Dear “SXO 4 Ever” and “Pink Lemonade Loves Me”,
Y’all had similar questions, so I’m gonna knock ‘em out with one swing. Hope you girls don’t mind.
I’ve had an inclination for making and listening to music for about as far back as I can remember. Used to pluck the old banjo and yodel up the mountainside like any good hayseed down in dixie-land sure as you’re born. I also tried my hand at the washboard, the washtub bass, the harmonica, the fiddle, the jug, the spoons, the bones, and the mountain zither. All that came in handy when I ran off to sell patent medicines with a traveling show, which consequentially taught me the benefits of selling snake oil with the help of musical accompaniment.
But, see, things really got rolling when I found an old guitar under a shade tree by the churchyard one day when I was a kid.
It had just plain popped up out of nowhere, and I felt like I oughta take the thing, so I did. Folks got to saying I made a deal with the devil in them tombstones seeing as I got good at guitar-pickin’ so fast. But THAT is definitely, definitely maybe just a rumor. Truth is I listened to a lot of those old-time backwoods blues that was played locally and whenever I could find it on record or radio, studying it closely. Learned from the best playing right on porches out under tin roofs. From out of that, rock n’ roll came around and I was set. I even had a small rock n’ roll outfit of my own when I was a teen-ager. That is until we got run outta town on account a’ playing the devil music.
As for the kind of music I enjoy, right now I’m turned onto heavy rock for the most part!
Some modern groups I dig are: Iron Butterfly, Steppenwolf, Cream, Blue Cheer, Status Quo, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Deep Purple, The Mind Garage, Vanilla Fudge, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Doors, Buffalo Springfield, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Zombies, Yardbirds, The Band, Traffic, The Chambers Brothers, The Kinks, Pink Floyd—to name just a few. And if we’re spanning genres here, I can’t leave off mentioning the soulful sounds of James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson…but I’ll cut it short there. You get the idea—I appreciate just about anything so long as the groove is tight!
What’s more, if any of you out there can give me the word on some new music, I’m always open to suggestions. I mean, if anyone’s really hep to what’s hot, it’s kids like yourselves.
Yours truly,