I have this one. It might be a personal issue, or just not meeting the right people at the right time, but except for a brief stint 22 years ago when I played lead guitar in a rockabilly band I’ve never had a regular band situation. We weren’t very good, but I think if we hadn’t lost our lead singer we would have had great potential. About 12 and 13 years before that, I played in a couple of college talent shows–but back then the piano was my instrument. I played ragtime and early jazz solos, just instrumentals. I sometimes think I might have been able to pull off a Dr-John type rendition of some early Fats Domino songs, but the thought of singing never even crossed my mind.
Oh yeah–in the second show I was in, there was one band that just about brought down Mandeville Auditorium with their performance of Johnny B. Goode. The audience stomped their feet and roared its approval for what seemed like several minutes.
I did pretty well myself, that night, playing a Jelly Roll Morton tune. There weren’t any good scores available in those days, but I did the best I could by ear and it went down well.
But today I could play circles around that guitar player. Damn! If they stamped the floor for that guy, they’d have blown the roof off for me if I could have played guitar then the way I can play it now. But in 1979 I barely knew one end of a guitar from the other. Why couldn’t I have been a guitar player back then?
A friend of mine bungee jumped at roughly the same age. Go for it! I went and I honestly felt like a new man. Staring into the jaws of death and all that crap.
