Topic: who made you want to learn to play guitar??

[Slack]

Welcome to the forum Az!

Sounds like you had a lucky childhood and I'll bet you are a helluva player.  Good advice on raising kids with music too - sounds as if frankie is doing exaclty that with his youngsters.

How do you come to Country Blues?  Or was CB played around the house?

Cheers,
slack

[uncle bud]

Last night, I was playing guitar in the basement, one kid was noodling on the piano upstairs, and another was playing cello in her room. It was pretty cool to think no one was watching TV or playing computer games (and I enjoy watching TV - they love playing computer games). I agree, Frankie's doin' it right, as did ozrkreb's family.  Welcome ozrkreb!

[ozrkreb]

Thanks slack and bud...good to be here.

Actually, my move to Country Blues was pretty gradual. I grew up playing my dad's music, which was Sam the Sham, Hank Sr., The Ventures, etc. I was in a couple of standard r'n'r bands in high school. In college I got hooked up with a bunch of older guys in an electric blues band in Springfield, Mo. It was during those years that I really started to delve into the roots of the blues. There are tons of guitar players in Springfield, and a very active blues community. One day I was in Hoover's Music store playing some guitars when an old guy pulled a guitar down and started playing a fingerstyle blues song. I was blown away....it was the first time I realized that when I thought I was hearing two guitars on those old blues albums I listened to, I was really hearing just one. After that, I started exploring Country Blues in depth. I've found the videos from Stefan's page to be unbelievably valuable.

[ryan]

well said Az!  I couldn't agree more.

[dj]

I imagine the "who" that made me want to play guitar originally, back in the 60s, was the same for me as for a lot of you - Beatles, Byrds, then Butterfield and Mayall, then Muddy and the Wolf, until one day copies of Really! The Country Blues Vol 2 on OJL and Country Blues Classics Vol 1 and the Blind Boy Fuller set on Blues Classics miraculously showed up in the record bin in the one-room library in Fishkill Plains NY, and I found one of my musical true loves. I got fairly decent at playing country blues, then got married, got a real job, got a house, and didn't touch my guitars for over 20 years.  I discovered Weenie Campbell a few months ago by Googling something like "radio blues mctell fuller", and have been listening and lurking the forums ever since.  Anyway, about 3 weeks ago I got so inspired reading some of the forums that I pulled out my old Gibson J 50 and started practicing.  The guitar needs a bit of work, and so do I, but I'ved been putting in a half hour a day trying to toughen up my fingers and remember some pieces and some technique.  (Thanks to whoever posted the picture of Bo Carter the other day - it made me realize that the reason I couldn't get any drive out of my thumb was that I wasn't holding my right hand correctly.)  Anyway, I just thought that you might be interested that the person who's gotten me interested in relearning how to play is Weenie Campbell.       

[Slack]

Hi DJ, fantastic!  If it is an old J-50, you've got a great guitar there and it is well worth fixing what needs to be fixed.  There is so much great instructional material out there now (especially compared to the 60's) that you are going to have a ton of fun.

Welcome to the forum and thanks for posting!
Slack

[lebordo]

I'm not sure there was one thing or even one moment when I decided to play guitar.

Certainly not during high school -- I had several friends who played guitar in a doo-wop band circa '61 or '62.? But I don't remember ever wanting to "be like them".

Wasn't the Beetles, though they may have had some influence in my getting rid of my flat-top haircut.? I wasn't a big Beetles fan, although I admit their tunes are catchy.

I suspect it was a combination of several things.? First, a friend at the U of North Carolina, who was an accomplished blues guitarist.? Second, my involvement with civil rights and later anti-war movements, which seemed to attract a lot of "bluesy" types.? And finally, two albums I bought at a fire sale -- Blues at Newport '63 and Big Bill Broonzy Sings Country Blues (just Bill and his acoustic guitar, with quite nice, very precise instrumental breaks and usually no accompaniment during vocals).?

The whole Newport album is great (I don't play it often, but every time I do, its like visiting with a long lost but very close friend).? I particularly liked Hurt's Candy Man, McGhee/Terry's Key To The Highway, Hammond's cover of Robert Johnson's Me And The Devil as well as his own No Money Down (I think I liked the Idea of a full roll-away bed in the back seat of a Cadillac -- maybe that's why my first car was a VW Bus), both of Hooker's songs (Sometimes You Make Me Feel So Bad and Bus Station Blues), and Van Ronk's Gambler's Blues.

So that's it.? No big "aha" moment.? Just a gradual realization that blues was really something special, and that it would be even more special if I could actually play it, too.?

As for playing around others, I must have a very high "feel like a fool" quotient -- I think I was playing for friends within a week or so of getting my first guitar.? I've never been really accomplished.? And I was certainly pretty bad at the beginning.? Yet that never kept me from playing in front of others.? I guess since I enjoy playing, I figure people who enjoy me will enjoy my playing too.

[Yves]

I obviously don't remember who made me playing the guitar but I know why... girls when I was a teenagernearly 65
A liitle bit later I have been "scotched" when listening to Lemon's "See that my grave..." the first country blues I ever listen to
At that time I used to go to the local café in Paris not so far from the red light area "Pigalle" and use to offer a limonade to an old man and talk to him a few words. My girl friend was the waiter.
He drove me to Lemon's recording an Italian LP ... this old man was Mezz Meezzrow.
I later discovered -  it was in summer 1973 - travelling in Scotland when he died listening to the radio who was Mezz. I must confess that meeting this man quite everyday he never told me who he was.

Yves "the froggy blueman"

[katieblue]

I wanted to learn to play guitar after an exchange trip to America.? The girl i was staying with had a brother who played guitar, and it interested me.

I only started playing Blues fingerstyle after my guitar teacher taught me some simple peices and i really liked it. Its been nearly 2 years now!

Still hooked

[Muddyroads]

I got into guitar as a result of the great folk scare of the fifties and early sixties.  A gal who was a friend of the family dated a guy who had made and LP and played on shows with Josh White.  I already had a guitar but that waxed it for me.

Mud