Who influenced you to become a musician

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