Who influenced you to become a musician

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Stringsinger
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 04:24 PM

Allison,

Talked to John Langstaff at Pinewoods before he started the Revels. He was in the
planning stages. Apparently it worked just fine.

In the winter of '82 (I think it was) I sang in the chorus of the Revels in the barn in Cambridge on Harvard Campus. (Sanders Theater?) He always closed out with "Lord Of The Dance" before Micheal Flately. Everyone danced around the entire theater space.

Beautiful baritone voice.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Leadfingers
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 04:08 PM

As long as its not ROOM 101 !

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Bernard
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 02:59 PM

101

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Leadfingers
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 02:40 PM

Whichever of my parets bought my firat Mouth Organ I suppose !

Cant think of anyone else to balme

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Stringsinger
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 12:33 PM

Music has been a journey for me that's covered a lot of territory.

My mother was a piano teacher during the Depression. As a small child I would hide
under the grand piano as she taught and practiced Chopin, Scriabin, Schumann, Mozart,
Beethoven etc.

At four years of age I would wake up a 6:00 A.M. in the East Side of Los Angeles and tune into KMTR, the voice of Tijuana Mexico and listen to Mariachi groups such as "Los Trabadajores de Mexico".

My step-father brought home 78's of Danny Kaye, Burl Ives, Leadbelly, Josh White,
Dwight Fiske (a name you don't hear any more), Gilbert and Sullivan, Lily Pons,
"The Lonesome Train" (Seeger, Ives, etc.) and an odd assortment of specialty songs such as "There are Lilies In The Bottom of My Garden", "Walter, Walter, Lead Me To the Altar"
"Suzanne is a Funny Old Man". My step-father Phil sang to me a song he had learned
hopping the freight cars from a Black hobo called "The Tennessee Blues". I still sing it
and have never heard anyone else sing it since.

I inherited an original copy of Carl Sandburg's "American Songbag" circa 192(?) from
my biological father who died four months before I was born.

I saw the movie "Smoky" and fell in love with Burl Ives.

Studied jazz guitar with Sam Surace who later became a sociologist professor at U.C.L.A.

My conservative aunt who was at that time a flaming Socialist introduced me to a 78 recording of "Hold The Line", a documentary of the Peekskill Riots. I'll never forget the opening, "This is Howard Fast".

Fell in love with Pete Seeger.

1949...went to my first Hootenanny. Bart van der Schelling (a vet of the Spanish Civil War) and his wife had them in their home in the Hollywood Hills. In subsequent meetings I met Cisco Houston, Woody Guthrie, Bess Lomax Hawes, Mickey and Mattie Miller, Jerry Atinsky,
Guy Carawan (who became my singing partner for a while), Rich Dehr and Frank Miller (later to become the Easy Riders with Terry Gilkyson) and a beautiful Black woman who played the autoharp and sang spirituals.

In high school, sang folk songs and played on folksong program for radio station KGIL in the San Fernando Valley. One of my fans was Wendell Corey, the actor who was most gracious and encouraging. Don Cherry was the M.C. I believe.

Through Will Geer, I met Cisco, the Weavers and my first exposure to Pete Seeger.
(Had to learn to play that kind of banjo, Pete blew me away so I took a couple of lessons from Eddie Mann.

Guy, Pete and I jammed together.

I met Woody at Will Geer's ranch and learned harmonica from him to perform in a local production of "Finian's Rainbow" playing the Sonny Terry part. We became "pickin' buddies".

Got into trad jazz and played trombone in jam sessions at the 47 club on Ventura Boulevard hosted by Zutty Singleton. Doc Rando, who played with Bob Crosby took me
under his wing. We became friends. (Practicing doctor who played jazz clarinet.)

Bess and Butch Hawes (with help from the UCLA music library) introduced me to
authentic trad American folkmusic .

Then one thing lead to another. I'm getting this down for an autobio. Mudcat folks have been encouraging and generous about this and I think it's our responsibility to see that these experiences get documented somehow. We all need to do this.

Couldn't do anything else but be in music because I was fired from every other job I attempted. Arrows pointed "Go this way".

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: GUEST,Gabe
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 10:07 AM

Dean Martin as incedible as it may sound. When I got my first guitar, "That's Amore" was the #1 tune on the hit parade. With it's 2 or 3 chords, I played it until I was almost exiled from home.

Gabe

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Fidjit
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 08:13 AM

Pity they didn't teach you to spell

Chas

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Kosmo
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 07:10 AM

My Taid who's an opera singer who taught me to read msuci and play the piano - he also plays the accordian.

My parents, who've sang and played folk around me since I was wee.

Queen, because I really love them.

ACDC, why not?

Luv
Kosmo

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Fidjit
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 12:29 AM

Quote Greg Stevens

Lonnie Donegan, who else?

And George Melly

Chas

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 15 Aug 09 - 06:07 PM

Michael Black

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: deadfrett
Date: 15 Aug 09 - 06:01 PM

Dad and all those others

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: GUEST,Bruce Michael Baillie
Date: 14 Aug 09 - 05:52 PM

The Dubliners and a bit later Planxty, Andy Irvine and Christy Moor. I still regard Andy Irvine as my all time musical hero to this day. But also my mother who played the piano (self taught) in our house while I was growing up. Many's the duet we did together at family parties back in the 60's. Old traditional songs and also her filthy version of Old King Cole (was a bugger for his hole!) She gave me a love for music that I still have AND it all seemed so normal. Making music at home, how many people do that these days?

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Johnhartford
Date: 14 Aug 09 - 03:03 PM

hi

Like others here I seemed to have been born just loving any kind of music.

However it was Lonnie Donnegan that actually influenced me to buy a guitar and actually learn to play so that I could achieve my ambition to play and sing in public.

My old man had a couple of Donnegan records and although the skiffle wave had started to fade into memory I bought an old Hofner guitar and started to teach myself to play along with Lonnie. I have to be honest and say that I wasn't a great admirer of Lonnie's music but it got me playing. So I will always be thankful to Lonnie.

By some strange chance I actually met up with Lonnie some years later. He was visiting some people who he stayed with as an evacuee many years earlier in my home town in Cheshire, though I was unaware of this.

The guy who he stayed with by this time was the Mayor and Lonnie came up to do a set for the Mayor's charity.

I was playing with a band on the same show.

We had a beer together and talked about Jazz.

Cheers

John

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: SharonA
Date: 14 Aug 09 - 07:34 AM

-- My parents, who insisted that all their kids take piano lessons. My father had been a guitarist when he was able to play (pre-rheumatoid arthritis) and my mother was an elementary-school teacher (with a mental library of a bazillion children's songs), so there was no getting away from music in my family.

-- My two older brothers, whom I idolized as a kid, and who were playing brass instruments in the junior high school band while I was struggling with the piano. I especially adored my eldest brother's trombone (I was fascinated with the concept of a sliding tone and the way it freed one from the restrictions of pressing a key) and I wanted to learn to play trombone as well, but when the time came for my rite of passage to a second instrument, my arms were too short to deal with the trombone slide. I was handed a clarinet instead; I had virtually no choice in the matter! But I took to it in a way I never had taken to the piano, and I loved playing in the school band, which was an invaluable learning experience. Don't know that I would have considered risking the ridicule from my junior-high classmates (band was not exactly a "cool" activity) if my brothers hadn't done it first.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Howard Jones
Date: 14 Aug 09 - 05:42 AM

Me too. I always wanted to play music from my earliest days. I can still remember the excitement of my first music lesson at primary school, and my disappointment at being made to play triangle when I wanted to play the drum.

I learned recorder at school, because you do, but I wanted to play guitar because that was what the pop stars played. However, by the time I had taught myself to play 3 chords pop music had gone all psychedelic and didn't work on an acoustic guitar. I found "Burl Ives' Book of Australian Folk Songs" in the local music shop, with tunes I could play, and that led me to folk music.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: John P
Date: 13 Aug 09 - 04:03 PM

I can't remember when I wasn't a musician. I was a relentless drummer by age 2, and started finding my way around on the piano not long after. I don't think anyone influenced me to start playing music, and I don't think I had any choice in the matter.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 13 Aug 09 - 11:33 AM

The rock guitar gods of the '60s and early '70s (Hendrix, Clapton, Duane Allman et al) made me want to become a musician, but they've actually had almost no influence upon my playing. While I made a stab at learning guitar during those days, the stuff those guys were doing was so far above my understanding I more or less gave up.

The person who most influenced me to actually become a musician was my best friend during early adulthood. He was a good enough electric guiatrist to master some of that stuff I liked but couldn't grasp. I'd listen to him play, but never attempted to join in. Then, a few years later, he gravitated toward acoustic guitar and I thought I could handle some of what he was doing, so I decided to give it a try. He taught me enough that I could keep my head above water in jam sessions, which is where I've really learned most of what I do.

Of well-known musicians, the one who's most influenced my actual playing style is probably Norman Blake.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Wesley S
Date: 13 Aug 09 - 11:25 AM

My brother brought home a Gibson 12 string guitar and a banjo from his time in the air force. And lots of records by Joan Baez, the Brother Four , The Kingston Trio and Peter Paul and Mary. It rubbed off on me. I'm still grateful. Thanks Jeff.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Art Thieme
Date: 13 Aug 09 - 11:15 AM

This is not a facetious post!

ALL of the people in this music of ours who have influenced me musically and intellectually have been spoken about ad-infinitum here at Mudcat in hundreds of my posts. I will let those stand for themselves as they are eminently findable here in this forum.

My mother, my aunt and my uncle are the three people I wish to mention in this thread as being extremely influential in having me turn out to be a musician.

They fought me at every turn by expressing their disapproval of this sincere and heartfelt choice of mine!! None ever heard me play my music before they all died.

Art

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: GUEST,Paco Rabanne
Date: 13 Aug 09 - 10:45 AM

Nick Griffin.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 13 Aug 09 - 10:21 AM

Gordon Bok has always been an encourager. Many years ago I booked Bok, Trickett and Muir for their very first ever concert together. Gordon stayed overnight at our place and we spent well into the night playing music after the concert. What moved me was that he just wanted to listen to me. I hadn't started performing concerts back then, with no expectation of doing a record and yet Gordon made me feel that I was important.

That is one of his finest gifts.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: olddude
Date: 13 Aug 09 - 08:12 AM

My friend Harry Chapin and I still miss him everyday

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: kendall
Date: 13 Aug 09 - 06:24 AM

My friend, Gordon Bok encouraged me to go on stage and perform for audiences.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 13 Aug 09 - 06:05 AM

Well, as a drummer can I call myself a musician?
As a singist I guess I can include myself on that score loosely.

Well it was the dear departed ex-wife. She gave me the freedom not to embarrass her - or let her be embarrassed on my behalf.

May she forever stay departed. And I - for my part will never stop singing - just to prevent such good fortune deserting me - I've changed the locks anyway.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Aug 09 - 05:05 AM

Alan "Pop" Morrow, my music teacher at school, 1958 - 1964, who showed me that there was more to music than Hank Marvin and Buddy Holly (great though they were). RIP "Pop".

My mum, who sang all day long and had the voice of an angel. I can still hear her singing "Too-Ra-Loo-Ra" to me as she cuddled me on her knee before bed. Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!   :-)

My dad, who could only play the gramophone - but what great stuff he played on it, The Ink Spots, The Andrews Sisters, Glenn Miller, Sinatra. The gramophone had a strange 'hot' smell when it was playing (it was one of the modern 'electric' models!), I can recall that smell even now, >50 years on.

And a guy who played the accordion for our sing-songs on the coach that used to take us on the annual outings from the factory my dad worked at. I always wanted to play the accordion, never made it.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Acorn4
Date: 13 Aug 09 - 04:13 AM

An album called "The Paul Simon Song Book".

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Smokey.
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 08:19 PM

My mother, with a wind-up gramophone and a piano.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 07:55 PM

I was born one. Best answer I can give. It was many years after I'd fooled around with ukelele, harmonica and mandolin before I heard someone who influenced my music. No one influenced me to become one.
Plenty of musicians influenced over the years, but they were in many genres, from jazz to popular music to folk (once I realized it was called folk music.) Frankie Lane, Frank Sinatra, Clancy Hayes, Lonnie Donnegan, Tal Farlow... hard to characterize their similarities other than that they sounded like they loved the music they played.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Commander Crabbe
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 07:33 PM

My self and Ralph McTell

CC

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Tootler
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 07:15 PM

I don't think any recording has influenced me to become a musician but they have influenced my musical tastes.

The people who have really influenced me as a musician are the various people who have taught me over the years. The teacher in my final year at primary school who first taught me recorder, the tutors at a Local College where I took a music course as an adult having rediscovered the recorder when my daughters started learning it at school. The Musical director of our local recorder society who taught a recorder class at the college. The various tutors at the Folkworks Caedmon Folk classes in Gateshead. Also several others at weekend and day workshops I have been to from time to time.

The feature all have shared is that they have encouraged my musical development and have never put me down, so I always felt encouraged to keep going.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Willie-O
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 06:35 PM

There is an interesting thing going on here...perhaps someone can count up the number of folks influenced by recording stars, and those influenced by someone playing live in front of them.

Now I had all kinds of recordings that influenced me...mostly my folks' Maritime folk music records (they moved to Ottawa shortly before I was born).   But to speak to the actual question...I always remember a public-school talent show kinda thing, around grade five or six. Three girls in my class--Kathy Kornelissen, Karen Parker and Hannah Ayukawa, I think--got up with a guitar and sang "Four Strong Winds". I just sat there as gob-smacked as a ten-year-old boy can get, and that is pretty goddamn gobsmacked in case you're wondering. I'd never heard the song before, and it was the only time I ever saw these girls sing with a guitar...I was just plain smitten. I like to think that my reaction was "I could do that", but really it was just "Wow, that's fantastic." (subtext: "Huh? It's not on a record!")

I will love that song till the day I die, just for the memory of when it carried me out of the cruddy interior of Fairfield Public School, to someplace where those winds sure can blow cold, way out there.

W-O

p.s. a couple of years ago the former Fairfield Public School was knocked down and replaced with 155 rowhouses. I guess the rsidents' kids will go to school somewhere but they sure won't have the acreage we enjoyed at recess..."You don't know what you've got till it's gone".

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: black walnut
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 03:12 PM

a. Grandma Moyer, playing the piano at the Baptist Church with her arthritic fingers.

b. And I just had to had to had to do it, that's all. I cried as a little kid to get a piano, until my parents finally caved in. I also cried for a harp, but unfortunately that didn't happen until I was in my 40's, with my own money. :-)

~b.w.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Old Vermin
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 02:51 PM

The musicians in the Ram Ciderhouse, Godalming [closed 1999]

Ed Rennie, Phil Atkinson, Keith Calton, Kevin Gorton and many others.

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/351117.

Took a few years for it to work, but I'm beginning to get there.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 02:50 PM

This is my cue to embarrass John Kelly (again)...

But first things first. Jozeph Roberts gave me my first floor-spot, the third time I went to Chorlton FC (February 2003). I did Sally Free and Easy, unaccompanied in a long fawn mac. Afterwards Jozeph said to me, slightly reproachfully, "You should have told us you sing." That was nice to hear (I mean, 'sing', not 'can sing'...) Thanks, Joe.

When I was a regular at Chorlton Kate Reigate used to be a semi-regular visitor, and was one of the few other performers who sang unaccompanied. But whereas I did whatever I felt like that week, Kate invariably did something traditional - and usually something I hadn't heard, despite my in-depth knowledge of the Pentangle and the Span. One week she did a completely different version of a song I thought I knew - that really got me interested. Thanks, Kate.

Les Jones was and is a Chorlton regular, and is also the onlie begetter of the Beech singaround, which got going in December 2007. There I met a bunch of people - former Song Carriers, Saracen's Head regulars and suchlike reprobates - whose knowledge of and enthusiasm for traditional song made me feel like a thirteen-year-old with his first Steeleye album. Fortunately I didn't run screaming; the experience opened a door that stayed open. Thanks, Les.

By the time I saw John Kelly do a full set, I was starting to get albums of traditional song & putting some work into finding songs and fitting them to my voice. (I was even starting to go off Anne Briggs.) So John didn't make me change direction, but he did absolutely confirm that I was on the right track - if a set of traditional material could sound like that, why would I want to mess around with anything else? Cheers, John.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Amos
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 02:40 PM

I LOVED Teagarden's old 78's. I can still hear him doing "Meet Me Where They Play the Blues".

But for me the inspiration was my mum and her father, followed by Frank Warner, Huddy Ledbelly, Pete Seeger, and Richard Dyer-Bennett.

More or less in that order.


A

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 01:42 PM

My Mamma sang on radio, at weddings and church solos
My brothers always picked for solos in school, older brother went on make music production and performance his career
My daughters singing together and creating harmonies and winning solos, awards and scholarships

Various singers, performers and composers in numerous genre.
I sang different stuff and played guitar a bit half-heartedly off an on.

But when I heard Odetta singing a tiny bit of Waterboy on a youtube video in late November 2008, I had not really found my place. Until then I was just wandering around tasting and trying a bit of this and that. Now I found my niche and it is down to her.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 01:35 PM

Back in the early 60s, I went for a walk on a local beach. It was a lovely summer's day and hundreds of people were taking advantage of the great weather. There were a bunch of teenagers sitting on beach towels, and a couple of them had guitars. I went and sat near them to listen. They were singing the "pop" folk songs of the day - Kingston Trio and The Highwayman material. I thought it was terrific. I had a chat with them and they encouraged me to buy a guitar and learn a few songs. I did, and getting on for 50 years later, I wonder if they are still making music. I hope so, because I am.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: bankley
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 01:00 PM

my older brother, Barry.... showed me my first chords and gave me my first axe, an old Kay archtop....
then cousin Dougie Trineer who was playing like Chet and Merle.. so I could see , with my own eyes, that the instrument had a world of possibilities... magic time.... it still does and is...    more than ever...

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 12:54 PM

Oddly, it wasn't a folk musician, but the sweet sound of a jazz trombone that first caught my attention. In the 1940's and early '50's, my folks shared a mountain cabin retreat in the Sierras which counted an ancient tabletop Victrola amoung its attributes. We listened to everything from "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" to Chopin to Bing Crosby on that thing. My favorite was Jack Teagarden, an early jazz/blues trombonist. I first played cornet in elementary school. My music teacher, a 70-something part-timer who had played trumpet with John Philip Sousa's Marine Band, encouraged me. From then on, it was just finding what really suited me and it eventually led to guitar.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Mark Ross
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 09:34 AM

My parents had THE WEAVERS AT CARNEGIE HALL LP on Vanguard. I was 7 or 8. Then, when I was 14 going to hear Mississippi John Hurt, Rev. Gary Davis, Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe at Hunter College(all for 2 bucks!).

Guy Wolff. it wasn't Stills frailing the banjo on that recording, it was my old friend Charlie Chin.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 08:05 AM

no one in particular,just enjoyed making musical sounds,perhaps the first person who gave me a guitar.
then the ba#####,who sold me a left handed guitar strung up right handed,when i was 15,which made me abandon the guitar for a while and take up the concertina.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: s&r
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 07:05 AM

Many years ago at Rediffusion Training School you sang 'Dirty Old Town' to a picked guitar. You were on one of my courses (Colour TV? Video?) That set in motion a passion for music that chand my life/career/wife...

Do you still play?

Stu

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: maeve
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 06:58 AM

GUEST,Geoff Nendick- I sent a Private Message to s&r to let him know you stopped by here. If you were to become a member (free) you could exchange PMs with him yourself.

Welcome to Mudcat.

maeve

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: erosconpollo
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 06:49 AM

First, Burl Ives, whose 45s for children (and adults, for that matter) I wore out as a six year old. I could tell then that they were several cuts above the other kids' music I'd heard.

Later, the Smothers Brothers -- when I realized you could make music AND be funny at the same time, I was sold.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Captain Farrell
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 06:35 AM

Buddy Holly/That`ll be the day guitar lick and also opening to Shakin All Over Johny Kid and the Pirates

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: GUEST,Geoff Nendick
Date: 12 Aug 09 - 06:21 AM

I'd really like to know who I influenced, who are you Stu? - Geoff

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: kendall
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 02:07 PM

Wilf Carter and Pete Seeger

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Margo
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 12:22 AM

God. Can't not do it. It's part of my being.

Margo

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: GUEST,DaveC
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 10:38 PM

First, Kingston Trio, then The Weavers and Pete Seeger. A 60s herd-follower -- too bad the herd has thinned out as it has. Later on -- much later -- Tom Pease.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 01:46 PM

Lonnie Donegan's recording of "Lost John" b/w "Stewball" in 1956.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 12:53 PM

Well, after I started teaching myself guitar at the age of 20 or so, I became influenced by the songwriting of Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Nick Drake...
I also fell in love with the blues (specifically country blues) of Robert Johnson, Son House, Willie McTell, and a lot of Delta and Georgia players...

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 10:39 AM

Hank B. Marvin, James Burton and the lead players in Gene Vincent's 'Bluecaps' and Johnny Kidd's 'Pirates' whose names I no longer remember (help me someone??). All long before I got into Folk music.
S:0)

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: mkebenn
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 09:01 AM

When I was really young my grandfather,when in his cups,would sing "Casey Jones" to me. Then the Trio, Jimmy Dean, Marty Robbins, Johnny Horton. It was The Stones and the Yardbirds that made me pick up the guitar, tho. When I was about 20 I heard a local folksinger named Ed Hart flatpick " Coal Tatoo" and "Co'dine" and that was thirty five years ago,and I played BOTH of 'em this morning!Oh yea, Little Hawk, I'd put 'em Tyson, Sainte Marie,Dylan..............Baez. Mike. p.s. I play ALOT of John Stewart

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Guy Wolff
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 04:45 PM

Playing for Girls at the dances first !!!
               Tude Tanquay was a local square dance fiddler , I loved trying to follow his music around on banjo .. First heard frailing .... (Steven Still playing banjo on Blue Bird) <><><>,loved ><><,    Clarence Tom Ashley   Robert Johnson   Ry Cooder Ry Cooder   ( Billy the kid) !! Martin Carthy Martin Carthy ( famous flower of serving men )    June Tabor (Rayard the fox) ...( Conga drum for samba partys at the Calder's house as a kid .. ) Taj mahal ( De old Folks at home ) .Peter Paul and Mary

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: cool hand Tom
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 04:12 PM

THE LATE GREAT LUKE KELLY.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: GUEST,chinmusic
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 03:20 PM

Early folk influences were Lightfoot, Jerry Jeff Walker and Dylan. I was also influenced by the way Tom Rush put a song across to an audience. His phrasing and interpretation were impeccable.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: burntstump
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 01:14 PM

Gordon Lightfoot

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 01:12 PM

"You're going to learn to play something this summer and that's all there is to it," said my mother. Later, she also said, "I don't care; piano lessons start next Saturday."

So I learned trumpet (and treble clef baritone, somewhat) and can do the scales on the piano.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: alanabit
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 12:18 PM

I grew up listening to all the usual big names which come to mind when you mention sixties music.
However, I should say that the two musicians whom I admired most when I saw them close up, were Paul Downes and Phil Beer. I admired them for their dedication, talent, eclecticism and exemplary manners. They were - and still are - everything I would like to be.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Pauline L
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 01:06 AM

My parents, who had music playing at home on the phonograph or radio all the time, as I recall.

Mozart. I distinctly remember hearing Eine Kleine for the first time, when I was ten years old, on the clock radio my mother bought for me with green stamps. Even then I knew I couldn't sing, but I decided that I could do something similar with my violin.

I teach beginning fiddle/violin and, when I get a new adult student, I always ask, "Why did you decide that you want to learn to play the violin?" Some of the answers I get are: "I went to Ireland and heard some awesome fiddle playing." "My mother played fiddle, and so did my grandmother. I guess it's in my blood." This one frequently: "I don't know anything about music but I love the way the violin sounds."

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Briagha
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 12:56 AM

The Everly Brothers, Tom Paxton, The Corries, and The McCalmans

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: RangerSteve
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 04:57 PM

I was planning on buying a guitar so I could be like Buck Owens and George Jones (I still have the flat-top haircut), but one night on a country station out of Hoboken, NJ I heard Grandpa Jones singing "Daisy Dean". He played guitar on that one, but I liked his voice and searched out his records, and fell in love with his style of banjo playing, so I got a banjo instead. I never regretted my decision. My older brother taught me the basics of harmonica playing, and the same radio station broadcast an hour of the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday night, where I first heard the Crook Brothers perform. They got me started on playing fiddle tunes on the harmonica.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: MaineDog
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 02:54 PM

My Mom used to play popular songs on her piano, which was never moved outside of my grandmother's house, so that only happened once a year.
Otherwise, I listend to r&b and pop as we all did in the fifties.
In high school I started to roller skate, and discovered marches and waltzes, which led to Chopin, which led to classical music. Searching for an instrument that I could more or less teach myself to play, I discovered the recorder, and "early music", which of course is a source for folk music, which I discovered in the late sixties. After I began to dance I found that the recorder is appropriate for English Country dance music, and sometimes for Scottish country dance music. Time flies by, and now I often play in contra dance bands also, and of course, early music groups, and traditional music jams of all sorts.

MD

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Cool Beans
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 02:46 PM

When I was a kid in summer camp in 1960 I heard Gerry Tenney, a counselor, fingerpicking "Railroad Bill" and it was the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard. That was it for me. A year later my parents bought me a guitar. By 1962 I was fingerpicking "Railroad Bill." I've never stopped playing.
I just Googled Gerry Tenney and I see he's still at it, with California Klezmer.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: GUEST,greg stephens
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 02:40 PM

I named Lonnie Donegan as main influence, he kick-started so many of us. But the anonymous guest a while back reminded me of the great encouragement you can get from kind words from musicians you admire. I got enormous boosts when I was wet behind the ears from Gary Davis and Alexis Korner, so I'd like to credit for that here. They were great people, and took time to give me good attention and advice.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Peter T.
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 02:12 PM

I am not a musician, and probably never will be, but watching Rick Fielding at work gave me a sense of what being a real musician is like, which, although I spent my life listening to music and being around it, was new, and is something I can at least now understand a bit and admire. Echoing the anonymous contributor, it may have something to do with Rick's stories about being a go-fer for Son House, watching Gary Davis, and playing Lonnie Johnson's guitar. Not to mention sharing a house with Neil Young. My only claim to a whiff of that universe was walking up and down Yorkville Avenue in the same years, and lying about my age to get into clubs.....


yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: beetle cat
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 02:12 PM

I'm no musician, but yeah I make a bit of noise.

I was abducted by the Folk crowd just a few years ago, initially by Frank Woerner, and Alison Kelley-Kraan,... if I had to pick names. And of corse Eric, who lent me his concertina (corrupted me forever).

If you ever want to be taken in and taught well.. make friends with the NY Packet crowd.

You are especially prone to abduction if you are a cat who is missing parts, or meowing at the doorstep, or just in any way a bit odd. :)

...Thanks guys.

mary

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 02:12 PM

My brother and Judy Collins

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: themutineer
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 02:11 PM

Woody Guthrie. It changed my life, hearing that voice, dusty harp-blwing and distinctive (fairly mediocre) guitar playing. Then, there was Leadbelly, Blind Willie McTell, Norman Blake, Bill Monroe and I was off on an odessey that will never end.

But Woody made me instantly grab my brothers old 12 string (take 6 of the strings off!) and begin trying to play. "Jesus Christ," Hard, Aint it Hard," Worried Man Blues," and "Jackhammer John" were the first songs I recall playing. Thanks Woody!

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Once Famous
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 02:05 PM

Initially, my father influenced me to sing.

To sing and play the guitar, The Kingston Trio

Then, Waylon Jennings, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Justa Picker
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 01:57 PM

This is embarrassing, but seeing Liberace on the Ed Sullivan show when I was 4 made me ask my parents for a piano.
As for guitar, Doc Watson and David Bromberg.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: GUEST,anonymous member
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 01:10 PM

Who influenced me to pick up the guitar? Too numerous to mention.

Who influenced me to seriously try my hand at performing? Mississippi Fred McDowell.

I met Fred when I was a college student. When he came to give a concert, I was given the duty/privilege to guide him around campus, hang out, make sure he got fed, etc. We wound up staying up all night after the show, drinking gin from the bottle (Gordon's), smoking reefer, swapping songs, and jamming.

Fred couldn't have been more encouraging; he told me he'd never met a white boy who really understood the blues as well as me. My first reaction was that he was, you know, blowing smoke. But the next day we were talking with his manager, Dick Waterman, and Dick told me that yes, Fred was dead serious and that I should really give performing a shot. I told him I was strictly a "closet" player (really, a dorm-room player), so he advised me to go out and get some experience and then give him a call after I established myself.

Fred told his manager, "you should have booked me to make that record last week with this kid, not that guy Mike." I later learned that Fred had just come from Chicago, where he had recorded the "I Do Not Play Rock n Roll" album with Mike Bloomfield. Now, I would never claim to be in the same league with Bloomfield as a guitar player, but -- based on Fred's expert opinion -- I just might be a better blue-eyed blues singer.

Within a year, I was busking for a living and playing the occasional basket house gig. I kept at it for a couple of years, had a lot of fun, but never managed to break through to a higher level of professionalism, and never gave that call to Mr. Waterman. I still suspect that I might indeed be the world's bluest white singer, but I realize that, even if true, that plus five bucks won't get me more than an overpriced cup of cafe latte.

I love this story, but usually keep it to myself because I don't want to sound like a braggart and a namedropper, and also because there's no dramatic happy ending -- I don't really have anything to brag about in the end, anyway. Hence the anonymous posting. If you recognize my voice, please don't tell anyone it's me (i.e., don't respond in this thread and give me away.) Shoot me a PM if you must.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 01:06 PM

Lonnie Doneghan, Tommy Steele and Joe Brown, then later Donovan, Dylan, and Bert Jansch (who in put my guitar playing back about 30 years!).

Pete

PS. Number 6, I used to play that song Angie and I can give you a tip about learning it - it's an INSTRUMENTAL. *BG* Sorry, couldn't resist it!). Seriously, I thought I was the only one still playing Bert's stuff so nuce to hear of another.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 12:30 PM

My Mum.

We were pretty poor and she bought me for Christmas this autobiography of Eddie Condon Jazz guitarist, entitled We Called it Music - it was remaindered in Woolworths 1/3d.

I read it like it was my bible - compulsively. Such an interesting life Wild Bill, Bix, Bud and that was only the white guys - he was the first white jazz player to record with Fats waller.

There was this sentence in it "Gene Krupa's drums trickled through the piece like bourbon over ice cubes."

I thought thats what I want to be.....



a drunk.............okay and and a musician

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Swave N. Deboner
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 12:03 PM

My mother was a singer and,
My father played trombone,
My sister plays the violin,
My aunt plays saxophone.

My grannie, she could really clog
While grampa played the spoons.
I got a cousin plays guitar,
He picks some dandy tunes.

My uncle plays the botton box,
My niece can play the flute,
She also taps and does ballet,
And plays french horn to boot.

It's clear, I really have no choice,
It's in my blood, you see.
It's hard to NOT be musical
In this here family.

I can plink on the piano keys,
And play the clarinet,
I want to play the bagpipes but,
I haven't learnt how, yet.

My forte' is my singin' voice,
I'm told I really croon,
They say that when I do my thing,
I make the women swoon.

But am I a musician? For,
I've never made a dime,
Oh,I just like to sing some songs
And have a good old time.

******

I am inspired by any good artist who uses their natural talent.

Cheers

SND

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: GUEST,Weasel Books
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 11:00 AM

Mum gave me a love of music, but what really started my love for music was hearing Andy Irvine. When I was very little mum taped off the radio some Irish songs that I only discovered years later were Planxty (and some rare Sweeney's men).
A few years later my favorite songs were those done by the Kingston Trio.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Mooh
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 09:58 AM

Primarily my father, himself a composer, choir master, and reader of all things related to church and classical music. I wasn't exposed to other musics until I was 12 or so. Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, then Roy Buchanan in a very big way, Leo Kottke, then a blur of performers from Oscar Peterson to Tonio K. Over 40 years now of singing in church choirs has been a huge influence.

Beyond that it's a compulsion, I can't help myself. Good or bad, right or wrong, it's what I have to do. Thankfully, I enjoy teaching, so there's an income to be made. Thank goodness kids (adults are a given) still want to play guitar.

Sometimes the failures and obstacles make me persevere. Disc jockey dances, karioke, disco, my encroaching age and intolerance of stupid music (don't flame me on that one, just see other threads on the subject) are things to be overcome and in their own way influencial.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: GUEST,Roger Rettig
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 09:33 AM

Lonnie Donegan! But I really always wanted to be Denny Wright or Jimmie Currie (Lonnie's consecutive guitarists) - I got a career out of it, anyway.....

RR

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 09:28 AM

Buddy Holly first of all - but no way could I afford a Strat back then. Then along came Bob Dylan and I thought "Jesus - I can sing at least as good as that, and play the harmonica a whole lot better" but, realistically, it was down to a school friend (Ron Stevenson - a great guitarist at only 14 years old back in 1961) who brought his acoustic to school in the Summer of '65 and showed me how to play Em, Am and B7 before singing St James Infirmary Blues.

That was my first effort at playing/singing - and, crap though it obviously was, opened up a lifetime passion.

Thanks to big Ron (RIP)

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Vixen
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 08:31 AM

1) My dad playing his harmonica, and writing songs for me when I was very young
2) My mother with all her albums of folk music, and recordings of things like the "Grand Canyon Suite"
3) My aunts MaryAnne and Nancy who pooled their resources to buy me my first guitar as a Christmas present when I was 10
4) My friend Sherry, who not only taught me basic theory, and how to play the recorder, but also gave me the confidence to keep at it
5) My husband, who continues to support my every musical endeavor
6) Charles, who taught me where my voice is
7) Every musician I've ever listened to, good, bad, and indifferent, has inspired me one way or another...

V

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 07:35 AM

Dad.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: kelvin
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 06:35 AM

Initially, it was The Beatles, The Jam, Bob Dylan, The Clash, Kinks, Small Faces, Elvis Costello. I've gigged, written and recorded in more or less this style since mid 80s.


Then about a year ago I discovered June Tabor, from the Echo of Hooves album. From that I found the Child Ballads and then thanks to various HMV sales; Sandy Denny, Fairport Convention, Martin Carthy and Eliza Carthy. It has totally invigorated my music and I've been doing an acoustic duo at a few open mics and gigs.

Any listening recomendations to aid my education?

Also, still a bit apprehensive about dedicated 'Folk' clubs - any friendly ones in North London? ;o)

PS: Saw June Tabor a fortnight ago in Canary Wharf - What a voice!

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 06:06 AM

I was a school band dropout, but Sandy and Caroline Paton showed me that there was a kind of music that I could do, and my life was transformed at the age of 10!

A few years later my dad took me to see the Spring Revels in Cambridge, Mass. Jack Langstaff became my next hero. He made the audience feel that they could sing and love it. I wanted to be like that.
Jack's featured in this month's Sing Out! magazine- I'm glad for him and for the many folks who will learn about him.

Allison

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 05:11 AM

My late Uncle Donald, a virtuoso mandolin player and Barney McKenna with his wonderful tenor banjo.

eric

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: s&r
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 05:07 AM

School music lessons put me off till I was thirty. Then a bloke called Geoff Nendick fingerpicked 'Dirty Old Town' and changed my life.

Stu

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: GUEST,greg stephens
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 04:35 AM

Lonnie Donegan, who else?

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: GUEST,Greycap
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 04:12 AM

Hank Snow, Hank Williams & then Ramblin' Jack Elliott

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: mooman
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 04:11 AM

My Dad initially. Then a so-called "music teacher" who told me I would never be able to do music (when I was eleven).

Peace

moo

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: muppitz
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 04:03 AM

I was always encouraged to sing by my Mum but my primary school teacher at the age of 6 used to find any excuse to do singing with the class so he could hear me sing, so many thanks to Dave Bury who used to teach at Newstead Primary School for encouraging me to be the singer I am today!

Aside from those:
All members of the House Band circa 1988, and The Wilson Family, oh and the Watersons. And my Mum has the McCalmans' "Smuggler" on Vinyl and used to play it all the time when I was little so I suppose them too!
Truth be known, my Mum's been taking me to festivals since I was in the womb so anyone I listened to was an influence really!

muppitz x

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Boab
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 02:35 AM

It all began to happen 40 years ago when an old friend tried to sell me his accordion. I did fancy having a try at it, but resisted his attempts at salesmanship. He finally gave up, but said "take it home and have some fun with it'. I took it home and burned a bloody hole in the top mother of pearl casing with a careless cigarette---and HAD to buy the thing. Och--I fell in love with it; and had one more good reason for chucking the weed!

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: john c
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 02:09 AM

One name, two people - Williamson! Roy (the Corrie) and Robin (the Incredible). Oh, and Barry Gibb........

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Sorcha
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 01:38 AM

Well, 'I' wanted to play violin, so mum signed me up. After that it was my teacher, Leoti Newland, my conductor, Howard Halgedahl but it took Stuart Mossman to help me find my true calling..fidding music. It took me over 10 yrs to stop sounding like a violinist....but I think maybe I've done it.......

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 01:31 AM

Interesting question. I'm sure that the love of and the need for music is inborn. Brought up the way I was, I didn't have access to much music- we didn't have radio or records, until I was in my midteens.

However, on Sunday evenings my father would collect all of us young'uns and we'd sit around the big library table with the stacks of black hymnals and we sang lustily- songs like Glory Gates (are ever open wide); Bringing in the Sheaves; Blessed Assurance- and a bunch of other songs I don't much care for. Even at that, it is a pleasant memory.

And I loved hearing the unison singing in our church and always listened for the silvery tones of this one woman. I learned all the songs that my older brothers and sisters brought into our home, songs by country artists like Elton Britt and Montana Slim (Wilf Carter). I taught school songs to the brother who was younger than I - White Coral Bells; We are Riding in the Morning; Music in the Air; That First Love of Mine- and that brother and I learned harmonica at the same time, the only musical instruments we were allowed. With the same harmonica, no less, We were somewhat under-indulged. *G*

So where did I get the idea that I wanted to make my own music? Other than harmonicas, I certainly never knew anyone who played an instrument.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 01:29 AM

Hmmm. I never figured there was much money to be made...

Not that I'm saying it's impossible, mind you. :-)

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Cluin
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 01:09 AM

In the beginning, my Mom and Dad and an uncle and a cousin who I jammed with.

Later, getting up and performng in front of people, my sister who needed an accompanist.

And after that, to become a professional (or paid amateur, as I prefer to think of it), Clinton Hammond who said, "We could make money doing this!"

And of course all the musicians I've ever seen play or have ever played with. And all the people who stuck around to hear me.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 12:48 AM

For me it was when I was a baby, hearing the Beatles for the first time.... I was playing drums by the time I was 2.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 12:42 AM

Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Ian & Sylvia, and Buffy Sainte-Marie. My parents and their eclectic tastes in music. The fact that we didn't have a TV, so I tended to pay more attention to information in the form of words and content...which helped me focus on good song lyrics instead of just plain superficial entertainment (which is all you generally get on TV).

You see, TV doesn't influence people to think for themselves in the least. Books do just the opposite, and so do recordings if they contain material that stimulates independent thought. Folk music did that very markedly, specially the brand of folk music emanating from the 60's folksingers like Baez, Buffy, and Dylan.

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Coyote Breath
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 12:36 AM

Now you may take this with a grain of salt but honestly: everyone who I ever heard making music when I was a kid.

My dad in the shower, my mom at the piano, my uncle Ted who was a jazz musician, composer and arranger.

All the fantastic musicians and singers on the thousands of records my dad had. I just got knocked out by all the music. I was a lucky guy. I went to after hour clubs, blues joints, nightclubs, concerts, every kind of venue you could think of. When I was stationed in France in '57, '58 and part of '59 I heard all the great American jazzmen and women in those unavoidably intimate cellar clubs that were so common in Paris.

What put me on the path, though, was hearing this calm, sweet voiced young woman, in a blue flowered dress, play the guitar and sing "The Damsel's Lament" I will never forget her. I still sing that song of tradgic lost love and suicide and when I do I am back in that coffee house in Milwaukee in 1959 watching her in that circle of light.

CB

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Peace
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 12:08 AM

John Niven Walsh--my grandfather
Jean Pierre Cousineau--my friend as a youth

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 12:07 AM

Tommy Makem, Luke Kelly, Bing Crosby and the Sons of the Pioneers.

Seamus

Subject: RE: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: DonMeixner
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 12:05 AM

My neighbor and friend Dick Ward.

Don

Subject: Who influenced you to become a musician
From: number 6
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 11:43 PM

Who or what inspired you to become a musician.

Me it was hearing Bert Jansch's Angie. Right then and there I decided I must play the guitar. That was 39 years ago and I'm still trying to master that song. I still feel that inspiration even now when I hear him play.