19 years ago tomorrow ( Xmas day 1987) I recieved the greatest gift ever...the gift of music. It came in the form of a red and white Sears' no-name guitar with a twang bar. I got it because a friend of mine played bass and wanted me to learn guitar so we could play Iron Maiden and Metallica together. He knew
all the songs already...and I knew
nothing. After starting lessons and rushing back to my buddy's house to fumble through " Mary had a little lamb", when my friend clearly was hoping to hear " Master of Puppets", I knew it was going to be a long haul. My friend and I then drifted apart due to going to different high schools, ( and him 'becoming' new best friends with a guy who knew how to play Bon Jovi) and the guitar sat in it's case. I kept going to lessons but wasn't learning what I wanted to play. I didn't really want to learn how to read music - I wanted to learn how to
play music. But what music?!! Iron Maiden wasn't for me, Bon Jovi was too boring, Van Halen was great, but WAY too hard to start with, and I somehow
knew what music I wanted to play, but I just didn't know what the music was called. Then a friend gave me
'Afterburner' by
ZZ TOP. That was it. The music I wanted to learn was called Blues. ZZ top was easier to play, they were 3 cools guys, 2 with waist length beards, and one with the last name Beard. Plus they were low down cool and had a hint of mystery - and humour!. It was so much fun to put on the tape, and play along with it. It was great! ZZ had a built-in metronome in their music which I could jam for hours to! I didn't know what I was doing, but when I couldn't hear myself over the tape, I knew I MUST have been playing it right! About a year later my parents took me to get a better guitar probably because I was outgrowing the Sears' jobby, or maybe because it couldn't stay in tune!! Either way, I went in with them and came out with a red 1989 Yamaha SE 612 electric. I can still remember the smell of the case it came in! I still have it and she STILL hums. Now...19 years later that guitar has become one of the biggest loves of my life. Low maintenance and BAD! That guitar has always been with me, and so has Billy Gibbons' of ZZ Top. After almost 20 years of playing guitar, I can now play INSTINCTIVELY like Billy Gibbons. I CANNOT not sound like him, and I am not going to be modest! I know every note ot every song they do, but yet cannot read one single note! I used to be kind of ashamed for liking ZZ thru the 90's era Grunge, and new punk, but now I don't care what people think. Billy Gibbons is one of the finest blues rock players ever. His tone, taste, and knowledge of the guitar is masterful. Jimi Hendrix once told Johnny Carson in 1970, that Billy Gibbons' was one of the hottest blues players he ever seen! Anyways...that's my story, and I hope to hear some of yours!
