My Musical Journey - Part 4
This is the fourth installment in a series following my musical journey to the present day. If you're following along, thank you!
Previous Posts in the Series
My Musical Journey - Part 1
My Musical Journey - Part 2
My Musical Journey - Part 3
We've got up to the beginning of 2004 in the story that began in 1991. I've got my Lakewood M-14 and my Heiner Dreizehnter Model A, and I've finally met my biggest guitar hero Tony McManus. I'm spending a lot of time playing on my own and talking guitars on Internet forums.
I'll talk a bit less now about guitar acquisitions and sales as there have been many. I will just touch on what came and went, but focus more now on the playing and the people I met along the way.
Little Brother Jams
I can't recall exactly when I met Little Brother online, but it must've been in 2003. He was prolific on the guitar forums and, in 2003, held his first acoustic jam at his home in Conyers, GA, USA. I didn't go, but I enjoyed reading about it on the forums. There was a lot of buzz and it was a great success. So much so, in fact, that he held them annually for the next few years.
The first one I attended was in 2004 and what a trip that was! First though, a minor diversion to talk about El McMeen.
El McMeen
I discovered El McMeen's music around 2003, possibly on the Celtic Guitar Talk forum. Remember those forums I mentioned earlier on which I spent so much time? Well, after finding the wonderful world of Celtic fingerstyle guitar through my introduction to Tony McManus, I decided to put my new-found web design skills to the test and set up my own forum, Celtic Guitar Talk. It's still online, but only because it contains a lot of great content and I don't want it to disappear. It was pretty popular for a few years. El was another musician with a prolific catalogue of fingerstyle guitar, including a lot of arrangements of Celtic music.
In late 2003, I contacted him to ask if he would give me some remote lessons. The Internet wasn't robust enough at the time, but I would send him DVDs that I burned of my playing and he would critique by email. It wasn't a great success, but that's more down to me than to him.
However, as I'd booked my flights to go to Little Brother's jam in 2004, I thought I'd tie in a trip to visit El in New Jersey and get an extended face-to-face lesson with him. And that's just what I did. I left Atlanta, flew to Newark, hired a car and drove to El's home for two extended lessons on fingerstyle guitar. Then drove to JFK for my flight home. Deal!
Georgia on my Mind
I flew to Atlanta in September 2004 and Little Brother picked me up and took me to his home. I was one of the first to arrive, as I flew on the Thursday to give myself a bit of time to get over the flight. This became the pattern for future jams too. I freshened up at LB's then we headed out to Northside Tavern, a great little blues joint in downtown Atlanta, where I got to meet Mudcat for the first time. Mudcat's a blues guy - the real deal. Northside had a really great blues vibe about it and LB was a regular in there, playing gigs and jamming with the blues cats. It was wonderful.
Here's a video of jam host Little Brother playing with the wonderful Bill Sheffield in 2004.
Guitar players from all over the USA attended the jams, and a couple of Brits. I was made to feel very welcome and I had the best weekend I’d ever had. It was there that I broke my performing cherry in 2004. To be honest, I can’t remember that much about it, except how nervous I was. I thought I had some video footage and photos of the jam, but I’ve not been able to find them. They might have got lost in a hard drive crash a couple of years ago. I also can’t find anyone else’s photos as all the guitar forums that were around in those days have gone. It’s a real shame.
All I have is a video of the man I became good friends with, Dave Skowron of Red Bear Trading, my Brook Bovey guitar that I've managed to harvest from Facebook.
This was also where I heard bluegrass music for the very first time. There were a bunch of guys from Kentucky and Tennessee that had a little bluegrass jam in the garage in 2004 - guitar, mandolin, banjo, harmonies, and I was spellbound. My love of that style of music has only grown since then and I played in a bluegrass band for the last three years, finishing in December 2017.
I attended Little Brother's jams every year between 2004 and 2007 and it was the highlight of my year. The friends I made there were lifelong and the hospitality was second to none.
Dave of Red Bear Trading and I started a business relationship after the 2004 jam and hooked up later in 2005. More on that in another post!
I picked up a new guitar that I had bought from Little Brother at the 2004 jam. He had started a company and commissioned a bunch of 12-fret L-00 styles to be built in two models - the Clarksdale Corrinna, in spruce/maple, and the Clarksdale Crossroads in mahogany. I bought a mahogany one to mark the birth of our daughter in 2004.
In 2005 I met John Thomas, author for the Fretboard Journal, Gibson guitar historian and guitar collector. That introduced me to Kim Walker's guitars for the first time and so began my 9-year wait to get my own Kim Walker guitar. More on that to follow.
It was also at the 2005 jam that I won a raffle prize donated by Santa Cruz Guitar Company dealer Kelvyn to order a custom guitar at cost price, the result of which was my Vintage Artist model.
I broke my teaching cherry at that jam too - giving a Celtic workshop focussing mainly on dropped D and DADGAD. It was actually quite fun and I began teaching at home on the back of it.
In 2007 I was there for my birthday and was surprised on the day by receiving a Soundseat from the jam attendees. Amazing.
There was a jam in 2008, which I missed because we'd just moved to Scotland from Luxembourg and just couldn't manage it. The 2008 wasn't at Little Brother's place - I'm not sure why, but that turned out to be the last one until a revival one-off jam in 2011, which happily coincided with my 40th birthday.
The 2011 jam turned out to the be the last one, and I'm all the richer for having attended these wonderful events and meeting so many friends.
Next up: selling picks to fund a trip to Steve Kaufman's Acoustic Kamp!
Photo Gallery
Click image below to go to Flickr Album.
Just finished the musical journey, you sure fell in love with guitars camuel! Does your wife ever get jealous of your mistress, or is she a musician too and understands the lure?
I'd also love to see some dtube tutorials. I have a guitar and can play about 4 chords (badly), but aint done anything with it in a few years now. I did, however, order some new strings for it the other day (from eBay so it'll take a month to get here.lol), so would love to see a few tutorials put up. :)
I did indeed. My journey posts aren't done yet. There's still quite a lot of ground to cover to get us up to the present day. Thank you so much for reading them - it means a lot to know that I'm not posting into the void.
My wife is and always has been very supportive. She even let me go to Little Brother's jams on our wedding anniversary and on my birthday! I didn't realise until compiling these posts that I went kinda crazy in a very short period of time after buying my first good guitar. I thought more time had elapsed between purchases, so it's been good for me going through all this. I've had to trawl through old emails to find the right timeline because there aren't always photos for some reason. I guess at Little Brother's jams I was too busy playing to be taking photos! One year I did take my DSLR, but I only got that in 2006 after my son was born.
Someone else was talking to me on here about tutorials and it's a great idea. I'm planning to do that and start with a simple fingerstyle jig in DADGAD. Meanwhile, check out @drkent on dtube. He's done some quirky off-the-wall tutorials for beginners and they're great.
Thanks for your great comments on my posts.
You're definitely not posting into the void! :). Wow, you really have a supportive wife, on your anniversary??? Photo's are good, but memories are better. Sometimes people get too caught up in 'capturing the moment' to truly experience the moment so I wouldn't worry too much about not having photo's. :). I had a look at @drkent but couldn't get either his 1st or 2nd guitar tutorial to play for me, so I gave up after trying a few times last night and again today.
I play only some basic guitar, I have had for a few years but I am usually at the keyboards. Still I would love to learn celtic fingerstyle because even if my music is not celtic it draws influence from it. Now I must repair it, It cracked :( Thanks for sharing your journey, just a note to let you know part 3 link is not working, and remember to give the banjo some love ;) it is waiting for it.
Thanks for reading @yidneth and for the heads-up on the broken link. I've fixed it now.
Celtic fingerstyle is great fun and not always difficult. One tune I play regularly is Catherine Kelly's, a slip jig that I learned from Tony McManus. It's in DADGAD tuning and uses a lot of open strings. I think even someone with basic finger picking skills could pick it up with a bit of practice. I could do a quick video lesson if you're interested?
The banjo thing is kinda frustrating. I had a beautiful mandolin and even got to the stage where I was using it in some live bluegrass shows, but guitar is my first love and I barely have enough time to practice that. So I sold the mandolin to get the deposit for a new guitar. I do kinda regret that, but hey ho. If only I could quit the day job and spend my day playing music, I'd get the banjo going no problem!
Oh maybe it would be a good idea for your dtube videos so we could all learn from it. I only have one proper guitar and then another old one that it is in open tuning (have not tried to play though) I am more a piano based musician. I do some simple strums and recently picked up the guitar to move forward the basics. I play some mountain dulcimer too as I was gifted one by a maker that usually go to gatherings to the ones you describe. I have a collection of instruments that have found my way, and despite not being proficient at any, I believe they sound better when loved. No dust on them! They are meant to be played. Hope to have encouraged you to try! 🎼
That's a GREAT idea. I'll look into getting that going.
I love your sentiment about instruments. DTube has been encouraging me to play my expensive 'investment' guitar!
Thank you for your encouragement!
You are welcome. :)
"DTube has been encouraging me to play my expensive 'investment' guitar!" Guitars always sound better if played regularly, I wouldn't go locking it away, keep it played!! ;)
Totally Martin. The luthier told me the very same thing!
That's an interesting read, I must check your previous three parts of the story.
Thanks Martin. There's more to come. I'm really enjoying going through my timeline and figuring it all out. When I look back, it's quite overwhelming just how incredible a journey it is, and it ain't finished yet!