What got you started?

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: Jack mostly folk
Date: 19 May 98 - 04:03 AM

As a young adult in the young sixties, I acquired a facination for "pop" folk music to the likes of The Limeliters, Kingston Trio, Christy Minstrels and all the other groups who was labeled Folk. The real search began trying to find where these songs originated from. Around 1974 while viewing "The Johnny Cash Show" I made a comment, " I wish I could play the guitar" Two weeks later for my 30th birthday, my wife got me a nice little classical guitar and I began my first lesson at an adult education evening class. A monster was born. I still think I'm a singer first and guitar player second. But as I get older I seem to be giving more time to just quietly playing the guitar. Everything I play is based around chord structures so when a melody leaks out of the guitar it's by accident. My wife does'nt play or sing but has been a major player and supporter of all the music things we attend. Festivals, house concerts, song circles and putting up with all my endeavors and monies spent on PA systems, guitars, banjo's, autoharps ,tape recorders magazines, song books. Getting started is an interesting thread,I guess when does it all stop?(might be the last breath an old folkie draws). Jack

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: Jenny
Date: 19 May 98 - 02:55 AM

I put in my two cents a while back, but just had to say how much I enjoy hearing all the "way back when" stories. They bring a smile to my face. And, speaking of guitars, my first guitar was a Gibson LG1, which my father bought in a pawn shop in Del Rio, Mexico, and about a year later he bought me a new Gibson B25, which I still have and still love ... it's 33 years old!. I've always been of the opinion that a good instrument is the best inspiration to play. Now that I've gone afield of the thread ... Have you noticed how often The Kingston Trio is mentioned in threads ... ttfn ... jenny

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: BK
Date: 19 May 98 - 12:13 AM

I'm almost always refreshed, delighted and invigorated by at least one thread in the bunch, when I do find time to fire up my browser and tune in here; this is another of those marvellous threads; It's really neat to read the many stories so far.

BUT - Erica: I really fell out at the mention of Cafe Lena! Not in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine it was still operating. I used to go there in the 60's.... The madness was wonderful, and sometimes a bit overwhelming back then; Back when I was too shy to sing and play on stage. Now, a couple times a year, I do it. It was also what I would nowadays call a bit too yuppie, what with that certain girls' college in town, sailors were not socially desirable for the young lovlies... too bad... I also used to go to Cafe Entre Nu, further south, near Albany. I think it has long closed. Saw my first Martin 12-string there, now I own one of that model- D-12-20. (I like my Gibson better..)

Wanted a rock guitar when young. Always a lot of music and singing in my house; never thought I'd do much of it, though. The parents didn't want the volume of an electric guitar, so my well heeled grand-dad paid for a D-28, (I'll never fully understand why give that to a kid who couldn't hold a guitar, let alone play.. family politics...) which was too big for my arms, and hard to finger.. and I didn't like the teacher. Took the money to the movies, until caught. (I was 11 or 12) Later joined the Navy, other sailors started me in folk/acoustic stuff, (wasn't called that back then) went home and got my guitar, which was perfect for my new (now life-long) interest.

The rest is history -sort of.. A tour in the Peace Corps and painfully learning to finger-pick, in spite of a chronic injury to the fingers of my dominant hand. Later the almost obligatory college folk group during undergrad school. Re-kindling an interest in celtic/british isles; somewhere -early- along the line an inordinate amount of influence (wasn't aware at the time) from Canadian performers - especially, in the early years, Ian & Sylvia, which at first I had to get accustommed to; Of course, Tom Paxton, Limelighters, KT, Joe & Eddie (Still among my absolute favorites!) The Womenfolk - the list is really endless.. The canadian influence probably got a boost when we were visiting on a Canadian Navy frigate, drinking Grog & jammin' in their quarters, and one of them said, "you sound like Gordon Lightfoot." Didn't know who he was, but I got a Lightfoot album in the Navy Exchange and only wished I could sound like him!!

I'm still very fond of Canadian performers, such as James Keelaghan -and many others, though my taste in performers is widely eclectic. Saw the Furies - back when they still had Davy Arthur, in Dublin, & since then, w/out him... Have realised that as a performer I am mesmerized by ballads - the combination of poetry and music.. and now I'm slowly evolving towards being a balladeer. I even occasionally mannage to not have too much stage fright when I'm up in front of the microphones.. miracles will never cease.. and, like the Mary Ellen Carter, we rise again.

Wow! this is too long, & it's too late at night, gotta go!!

Cheers, BK

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: Pete M
Date: 18 May 98 - 11:26 PM

Well uz daon knaow 'bout startin', but uz do knaow that that there Tom Pearce, his uncle Tom Cobbley an is gert mare com from Widdecombe, not "Whittington", if'n exists a'all m'dear.

Pete M

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 18 May 98 - 10:25 PM

I was raised in an area of country Victoria (Australia) which I only now recognise as being an Irish (and to a lesser extent) Scottish enclave. Most of the live music I first heard was in church, and at weddings and funerals. I first heard 'The Rose of Tralee' at a family wedding - and what a surprise - all the adults knew all the words! Sang on stage at about age 7 at a class concert singing ' Sink the Bismarck' plus another pop song with the word "devil" in the title. (Just recalled, it was "Hey Little Devil"). The nuns were definitely not amused at this modern form of blasphemy.

Hardly saw a musical instrument other than piano/organ during my childhood, but discovered many years later that there were some people around who played things like tenor banjo or (ebony) bones. My parents' generation main form of entertainment during the Depression was ballroom dancing, and to be able to play modern or old-time dance tunes on piano was considered the height of musical achievement. My 86 year old mum informs me that the dances cost 1 shilling for entry and being the only affordable entertainment were always packed full of people. The only instruments that could compete against the noise were piano sax and drums, and for that reason vocals were rare.

Step forward to about 1967 - camping at Torquay Beach with some teenage friends. We were adopted nightly by a number of students from Melbourne Uni who played folk music and sang harmony. It was the first time I had ever seen a guitarist who could play bass, rhythm and melody at the same time, who sang interesting songs and had a great time to boot. He had a couple of mates who played guitar and 5 string banjo, and together we sang songs such as 'Sam Hall', 'Whittington Fair' ...the one with Uncle Tom Cobbley and all - and got lots of complaints from other campers who loved the music but wanted some sleep. The amazing guitarist taught me the song "Cycles".

I bought a guitar, later a 5 string, taught myself to sing harmonies - and sang "Cycles" at my wedding 10 years later on. I have had the privilege of performing a few hundred times since Torquay, had lots of fun, learned a few more instruments, re-discovered Celtic music and discovered this Forum.

Thirty years on from Torquay I met the amazing guitarist again at the Woodford Folk Festival. His name is John Malcolm - and he is now a MEGA amazing guitarist and performer. The five string player is in Ireland producing records (I think) and the other muso turns out to be Dave Isom, one of the founding members of The Bushwackers, arguably Australia's most influential folk band.

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From:
Date: 16 May 98 - 06:43 AM

When I was in Junior High (1958-60), I used to hang around and listen to a high school rock band at the drummer's house next door. Back then, rock was pretty much instrumental (Duane Eddy, Santo & Johnny, etc.). Any way, I got hooked on music. About a year later, I found WILD in Roxbury, MA - Rythm & Blues - and left the top 40 scene for good. At some point, I gravitated to folk/blues listening to Van Ronk, Eric Von Scmidt, Geoff Muldaur, Rolf Cahn, etc., which led me to the country blues. I continue to try to get my fat fingers around the fret board with varying degrees of success.

By the way, Barbara, I was at UMASS when Clean Living was playing. I think I even have the album around somewhere.

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 16 May 98 - 03:42 AM

Sex. Many years ago (I think it was in the same galaxy) I found myself in Colorado, seeking girls (I was between high school and college at the time). Somebody tipped me off to the fact that square dances were full of girls looking for guys. Great fun.

When I returned to New York, I found that there just weren't any square dances. In desperation, I fdecided to call my own. AND, since record cost money and I didn't have any, I borrowed a guitar, learned a couple of chords and took up singing calls.

When the 1948 elections were impending, someone (female) dragged me to a Progressive Party Rally, where some odd types (Seeger, Guthrie, LeadBelly) were singing. I was hooked.

I'm not convinced that folk music is as good as sex, but it makes a fine accompaniment.

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 May 98 - 03:01 AM

I think it was the nuns.
My dad has always been one to break into song at the drop of a hat, so it was natural for me to join the choir at St. Rita School in Racine, Wisconsin, when I was in fifth grade. I guess I got hooked when Sister John Bosco said that Ronny Benedict and I were "really sharp" and I took that as a compliment. She kept us in the choir, even if we were sharp, and she recruited us into her harmonica band. I was in the seminary in high school and college during the heyday of the "folk Mass," and we sang all the time. We used to gather in the vestibule of the chapel before evening prayers, and smoke cigarettes and sing Englebert Humperdinck songs. I still sing in church, but don't sing much Englebert anymore.
My other early exposures to music were listening to PP&M and the Kingston Trio at the two homes where I worked as a babysitter - and I have worked with Scouts and as a camp counselor for most of my life. I discovered song circles about four years ago, and that has been my most enjoyable exposure to folk music.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 May 98 - 08:46 PM

edited posting from an earlier thread---

I had almost NO musical life beyond playing clarinet in the band...until I was over 21, and along came the folk-scare, and in about '61,Pete Seeger, The New Lost City Ramblers, and the Beers family came to Wichita within a few short months, and it sort of caused the few members of the local Classic Guitar Society who also played 'folk' to split and form a folk group...and I knew one of them...and soon there were Hootenannies and coffee houses..
One fellow in town knew lots of Child ballads (I never knew where he learned them)and subscribed to SingOut, and our small group almost totally ignored the 'Pop Folk' of the day..(PP&M, Limelighters, etc) we did some of the same songs, but not AS copies of what was 'hot'.And I found out that the library would check out record albums...where I found Richard Dyer-Bennet, Jean Redpath...etc...and I bought a few albums..."The Weavers at Carnagie Hall", Burl Ives "Wayfaring Stranger", "New Folk" with Hedy West, Jackie Washington, David Gude and The Greenbriar Boys..added a couple Pete Seeger albums and there was no turning back..

And somehow, the owner/manager of of a very small local FM radio station heard about our little Sat. nite group, and we were invited to put together a 'live' radio program....so I guess my first 'really' public appearance...other than sitting in living room singing "SinnerMan" and 'Buffalo Gals' (I mostly played the recorder and sang on choruses in those days)was on the radio (still playing the recorder)! And then one night I was at a bar and some guys who had a little band and who had seen me at a party with my new autoharp, invited me to come play a couple of things with them.....foolishly, I agreed, and got up in front of a microphone and totally butchered 'Wildwood Flower'. Since then, I have pretty much limited my playing to those living rooms and groups of friends....seldom with microphones present....those things change EVERYTHING *grin*.

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: Animaterra
Date: 15 May 98 - 04:45 PM

Born into a family with eclectic listening tastes but no performing, I thought I had to have been born with a silver piano in my mouth, and that since we had none, I couldn't be a musician. Believe it or not, it was going to a Sandy and Caroline Paton concert at age 12 that made me realize that I could do that, too. Studying under Jack Langstaff of the Revels in Cambridge, MA, made me want to help others find their musical voice as we. Now I sing, teach elementary music, and direct a 50-voice "a cappella" women's chorus, arranging almost all of the music. Music is my life!

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: Roger Himler
Date: 15 May 98 - 04:27 PM

I can't remember not singing. My parents were not musical, but the radio was always on in the kitchen. I sang along to Perry Como, Dean Martin, and others. I loved music. My oldest two sisters were musically inclined and could sing. I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, but I still loved to sing.

In the sixties, I loved the Kingston Trio immediately. My brother had traded in my sister's idle accordian for a Gibson Les Paul. I found Alan Lomax's *Folk Songs of North America* in the library. It had an appendix of guitar and banjo chords and descriptions of different strums and picking styles that were nicely matched up to the songs.

Gifts from parents included a guitar, my own copy of *Folk Songs of North America* and a reel-to-reel tape recorder (for the family). I taped a distant radio station that featured folk music allmost every Sunday night (WAVA, Alexandria, Va.'s Music Americana). The DJ, Dick Cerri, is still an active promoter of acoustic music in DC, but currently without a radio show.

I learned guitar to impress the girls (and met my fiancee through my music). My first public performance was at the French Assembly my Junior year. I had to write something in French for homework, but I was too busy practicing guitar. I decided to write a French song. My French teacher liked it so much she asked me to sing. I did.

Well, it is 30 some odd years later. I still love folk music. I have tip-toed back into singing in public, and sometimes people pay. Like Loudon Wainwright III, it amazes me each time I get paid for doing something I love to do.

Oh, and for all of you frogs out there who can't carry a tune. My voice has been repeatedly described as a rich, smooth baritone. I truly believe I have been blessed with this wonderful voice because I kept on singing. I have never received voice training, but I can carry a tune real well.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 15 May 98 - 03:38 PM

I can't remember...

Art

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: Bill in Alabama
Date: 15 May 98 - 02:42 PM

I couldn't avoid it, had I wished to. I'm sixth- generation in the southern Appalachians (East Tennessee), and grew up on a small farm where three generations shared a house. Both my grandparents played and sang, and my parents too. I began with an old Silvertone guitar, but for the past 35 years I have been a banjo picker. I am just struggling with learning to read notes. In our family there was always music, and I'm mighty thankful for it.

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 15 May 98 - 02:12 PM

Since the 60's I've always like folk but only in a once in awhile way. In the mid 70's I attended a mini one day folk fest at Plymouth, Mass., & this woman, Barbara Carins, was dong a bluesy type workshop & I had mentioned that what she had just done sounded like a prison thing I knew, she proded me into singing the little bit I knew of it & then offered some encouraging words (I never sang or condidered it). Last month I spoted her while I was on stage singing at a folk festival, she came up to me & said "I like what you did" (she had no idea who I was), I replied with a thanks & told her it was she that should be getting the thanks for starting me off singing 20 years back. Barry

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: Allan C.
Date: 15 May 98 - 01:52 PM

Oops! Sorry. Don't know how I got double-posted.

Subject: What got you started?
From: Allan C.
Date: 15 May 98 - 01:37 PM

Reading Steve T's remarks on another thread got my mental wheels turning backwards. I flashed back on the first time I ever heard someone play guitar. It was seventh grade. My classmates and I were sitting in the gym bleachers waiting for the bell to ring. Some guy came in with a guitar and a couple of other upperclassmen. He sat down on a folding chair then played and sang Buddy Holly's "That'll Be the Day". I was a goner! I had never before seen a real person both sing and accompany himself at the same time! What a concept! It opened my eyes to a whole 'nother world. Not very long afterwards the Kingston Trio released "Tom Dooley". My thirteenth birthday soon followed and I got what I had heavily hinted for: a guitar, the K.T.'s In Concert album, and my first guitar lesson. The rest is history.

What got you started?

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: Jack (Who is called Jack)
Date: 15 May 98 - 12:29 PM

I always loved music. At age 5 I was a big fan of the Beatles. Used to sit in front of the radio waiting of the DJ on WIXY to play Hard Days Night just one more time. Around age 9 my folks took me to see 2001: A Space Odessy and I became a convert to classical music, especially Beethoven. The conversion to folk came gradually, influenced by 5 albums that my parents owned.

#1 Harry Belafonte #2&3 PP&M Moving and Album 1700 #4 Simon & Garfunkel Parsley Sage etc.... #5 Pete Seeger at Carnegie Hall.

As a junior in High School I got interested in Guitar after watching a guy I'd known since kindergarten play and sing songs he wrote himself, I begged for one of my own. Got one for my birthday (A Guild M20 I still own). Soon after that I picked up the harmonica, and bought some blues albums. My favorite was Sonny Terry & Brownie Mcghee, Midnight Special. Acoustic Blues became my secret passion that I was unable to share with my High School companions that were all into Boston, Genesis and Foreigner. Nursed this passion alone till college, where one day, during a break in a training seminar I was attending at the student center, a friend invited me to check out the folk festival workshops upstairs for a while . Fifteen minutes later I knew I had found my niche.

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: Nora
Date: 15 May 98 - 12:28 PM

Grew up listening to my parents' Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, etc. Rebelled by studying classical music. A friend gave me a Sandy Denny record and some Pentangle records in about 1980 or so. Got hold of some Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson, etc. and was lost from then on. Or found, I guess, depending on how you look at it. I started listening to midwestern singer-songwriters and folk musicians, and then got involved with community radio, producing acoustic folk and, yes, womyn's music shows.

My current project is learning to sing; I have always believed my family members who told me I was a lousy singer. I'm finding they were wrong. I live in North Carolina now and am finding Piedmont style blues and old time string band music much to my liking.

Nora

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 15 May 98 - 12:20 PM

I took piano lessons for one year (around age 5) and gave it up, like most kids. Then I taught myself how to play piano from a correspondence course at around 13. Played well enough to enjoy some of the simple Beethoven pieces and some old standards, but never considered myself a musician because I couldn't play by ear! (I understand now that people who play by ear and those who read music are very often in awe of the other group).

My husband was a professional musician (bass player in the folk-rock band Clean Living) for several years and had been a folkie on guitar at coffee houses during college. I was so intimidated by his musical talents that I never dreamed I could be a musician, too. He always wanted a banjo, to make up for the Ludwig tenor banjo his father had given him at 14 that he hocked for a Martin guitar. About 5 or 6 years ago, the kids and I gave him a 5-string for Father's Day. I decided that while he was struggling on the new banjo, I could make a fool of myself by taking up the guitar. It worked. We now do lots of duets on banjo and guitar, both at home and performing out. I'm also rhythm guitarist in an occasional band of ours.

Two years after guitar, I took up the fiddle. That's the instrument I wish I had learned as a child, because it really sparks my soul. If I had to give up all of our 32 instruments except one, that would be the last to go! I find that I can play by ear on guitar and fiddle and can also pick up classical pieces (if they're not too hard) on fiddle because I can read the treble clef from piano.

P.S. He's still looking for that old Ludwig tenor, but is surgically attached to the three 5-strings he owns.

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: erica
Date: 15 May 98 - 12:17 PM

well, hmmm...been singing in church since before i could speak, i'd stand up on the pews and peer into mama's hymnal and pretend i knew the words. (that's the only thing i really go near a church for now, singing duets with her.)
i was always really into PP&M, simon and garfunkel and all these old vinyl records me parents had. somehow or another i stumbled across an old judy collins songbook, where i found suzanne by leonard cohen...that one got me really interested in the book, which got me into some earlier trad. folk stuff and then (drumroll for the important moment) about five years ago my friend kenny played a chieftains CD for me!! YAY! i transcribed a song off of that and went fairly mad with it all. i hope to get madder!

if anyone knows caffe lena in saratoga springs, ny, i'm playing there sunday (17 may) for the folk-a-thon... (come see how the madness is turning out!)

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: Jon W.
Date: 15 May 98 - 11:45 AM

The first musical group that I was interested in (about age 14-15) was Creedence Clearwater Revival. I liked the sound of the bass on their recordings, but thought they were using a bass fiddle until I saw them on Ed Sullivan. I was able to buy a student model electric bass for $70 (which I still have) and took a few lessons, which introduced me to blues. Eventually, about the time I got married, I gave up on bass and picked up acoustic guitar. My interest in blues had expanded to acoustic blues styles by then. Several years later a guy at work got me interested (infected, addicted, just plain nuts for) Irish music of the supergroups (Planxty, Bothy Band, etc) and from there I gravitated to listening to and attempting to play not only blues but other types of folk, ballads, dance tunes; on guitar, banjo, and tin whistle. But I've had few chances to perform and little time to spend polishing songs well enough to perform anyway. But hope springs eternal...

Subject: RE: What got you started?
From: Alice
Date: 15 May 98 - 11:20 AM

I was born into a family that sang and played music. My grandparents played for house dances that they and their other homesteading neighbors would share. When I was about five, my older brother found a bundle of twenty dollar bills totalling $1000. He had been looking around in the old gravel pit in the country near our farm. He came running home, waving it in the air, yelling 'now I can go to college, now I can buy an electic guitar'. After a year, he was able to keep the money. Apparently it could have been from a cafe robbery in Canada, and the thieves had crossed the border to Great Falls and split the money up while parked in the gravel pit, losing a bundle of $20's in the dark.
My brother wrote a letter to Chet Atkins, telling him that he really wanted to learn to play like him. Chet Atkins wrote back, saying just keep practicing.

We had music all around us. It was an important part of our family life.

alice in montana

Subject: What got you started?
From: Allan C.
Date: 15 May 98 - 10:58 AM

Reading Steve T's remarks on another thread got my mental wheels turning backwards. I flashed back on the first time I ever heard someone play guitar. It was seventh grade. My classmates and I were sitting in the gym bleachers waiting for the bell to ring. Some guy came in with a guitar and a couple of other upperclassmen. He sat down on a folding chair then played and sang Buddy Holly's "That'll Be the Day". I was a goner! I had never before seen a real person both sing and accompany himself at the same time! What a concept! It opened my eyes to a whole 'nother world. Not very long afterwards the Kingston Trio released "Tom Dooley". My thirteenth birthday soon followed and I got what I had heavily hinted for: a guitar, the K.T.'s In Concert album, and my first guitar lesson. The rest is history.

What got you started?