When I was fifteen, we didn't have a lot of money but my Mum knew I loved guitars and she bought me We Called It Music - Eddie Condon, the jazz guitarists auto biography from Woolworths 1/3d remaindered book counter. From then on, I was sold on the romance of becoming a jazz musician. One sentence has stayed with me:-

'Gene Krupa's drums trickled through the piece, like bourbon over ice cubes.'

The trouble was that the trad boom was pretty much over - so opportunities to fulfil my ambition were looking thin.

Nevertheless my chemistry teacher took compassion on me and let me sit in with his old band, at one their of infrequent reunions. Also he passsed onto me a copy of the Lomax/Morton book. My god , what a distraction for the 'O' level year.

Mr Robinson (the teacher) also played me his bands recording of Windin' Boy and Jelly Roll Morton's. He was very kind, and I could not repay it by remembering the Periodic Table for him - though God knows I tried. Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Berylium, Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Fluorine, Neon.... I knew that much when I met him, and I don't think I ever got any further!

It was roundabout this time also that The Blues Project Album surfaced in my school, containing the track Winding Boy (Morton's Whinin' Boy) by the wonderful, but now dead Ian Buchanan. Surely one the greatest acoustic guitar pieces ever constructed - an absolute tour de force.

It all seemed like a wonderful mosaic, that one day I would put together and understand and complete with my own playing.

I wish I could pretend that my musical roots are in the soil of my native Lincolnshire. But the truth is, we were all living in the global village by that time. And this was some of the first music to bring a light to my eyes.

big al