If you want to learn how to make songs yourself, you take your guitar and you go to where the road crosses that way, where a crossroads is. Get there, be sure to get there just a little 'fore 12 that night so you know you'll be there. You have your guitar and be playing a piece there by yourself... A big black man will walk up there and take your guitar and he'll tune it. And then he'll play a piece and hand it back to you. That's the way I learned to play anything I want - Tommy Johnson, to his brother
First time I've felt able / obliged to post in performance corner rather than elsewhere!
Saturday 12th April, at the Kings Arms in Stratton on the Fosse, Somerset:
Triple bill gig featuring approx. 45 minute sets from me, a young singer/ songwriter named Soph Curtis, and acoustic country duo Gary Maule and Dylan Smith.
Simon go to the bottom and look up at the aqueduct (Somerset locals pronounce as Hucky Duck) from the unfinished Somerset and Dorset Canal. Great walks along the route.
For reasons I can't explain, I was pretty much completely relaxed, virtually no nerves at all- and just played. Was great fun. Solid 45/50 minutes without any obvious cock ups, sold 3 CDs and then sat back and drank too much cold beer whilst listening to 16 year old Sophie Curtis do her second ever proper public set, followed by a lengthy and increasingly raucous set by "The Cosmic Chipmunks" who are an experienced duo and know exactly how to rock a pub on a Saturday night. Enjoyed it a lot. The Chipmunks declined to do a final encore song and instead managed to persuade Ms Curtis's (by then inebriated) boyfriend up to do a closing number. Happily, the fellow in question happens to be Darren Hodge, one of the most extraordinary young guitarists I have seen. They actually met at the Sunday afternoon village hall cafe thing which instigated the whole gig (run by one of the above-mentioned chipmunks) a few months back. He did a ridiculously swift version of Cannonball Rag.
For those interested in such things I did: Black Mountain Blues Phonograph Blues Up the Way Bound Jailhouse Blues 99 year blues Savannah Woman (Ben Andrews) Dough Baker (CW Stoneking) Don't Give my Lard Away Moonshine Jitterbug Swing Vigilante Man Dust my Broom Down the Dirt Road
And for good measure, here's a video of Mr Hodge doing Cannonball rag (albeit at a different venue...)