Tondeleo: For serious musicians, everything else is just something they have to get out of the way, so they can play music.
If they have jobs, the job is to pay the bills so they can play music. As soon as they have spare time, they're out playing music and trying to find people to play with. It doesn't matter if they are poor or are doing well financially, it seems that serious musicians all feel this way. At least the ones I have met through Doc and his friends.
Doc: Yeah, that's pretty much right, Tondy. Hey, here's an old musician joke for you. What's the difference between a guitar player and a pizza?
Tondeleo: I don't know, what IS the difference between a guitar player and a pizza?
Doc: A pizza can feed a family of four... guitar player can't. Well, most of 'em can't. Not without a regular job.
But yeah, like you said, we want to play all the time. If we go out and are playin' a lot of times there's other players out there listenin' and they might ask if they can come up an' play with us.
Like me an' Rick was out playin' the other night. The rest of the Holy Ghost Band wasn't available, so just the two of us took the bookin'. We knew that there'd be people there who would join in and make a band and we'd sound ok.
We got home made and cheap equipment. That means we've had to learn to work around that. The other guys have nice stuff. I have to make my guitars sound as good as theirs or it won't work. They do't care how my stuff looks, just how it sounds.
Tondeleo: And what happened... did it work out that way?
Doc: Yeah, as we got set up, a drummer and bass player was listenin' to us tune up and hit a few notes. They joined us from the git-go. Then a lead player and a trumpet player of all things. That's the first time we had a blues trumpet player with us. He was good, and I didn't even get to meet him! He just come up and played real well, and then disappeared into the night after about an hour of playin.' Later Jim McWilliams said the guy on trumpet was Mike Robey. I never did get to meet him.
The drummer was Glen Strobel. He played a while and does a good job. Then Bobby Jones played drums lot of songs. He was the drummer for Roy Buchanan for like 30 years and was on a lot of albums with Roy and toured the world. He was there.
We had a couple lead players, too that night. Couple of bass players, too. A gal named JoAnn and a guy whose name I didn't get, and Troy Peterson swapped around from lead to bass. Bill Hull played lead for a while. People swapped in and out a lot.
One reason we get a lot of people and other bands what like us is we sound different than most. We ain't had no music lessons, so a lot of what we do is homebrew.
Tondeleo: Homebrew???
Doc: Yeah, homebrew. It means we just sit down by the radio and try to figure out what they was playin'. We end up not playin' it exactly like the guy on the radio, but we discover a lot of other things while tryin' to play it.
You wouldn't get that if you took lessons. You'd just be taught how that guy played it and that would be all you learned. People ask me all the time how I learnt to play a song a certain way. It's not because I'm doin' it better, cause I'm not. It's because it's different, but still sounds pretty good.
Another part of it is because we don't play bar band music, and that is different.
Tondeleo: Can you explain what bar band music is?
Doc: Bar band music is what bands got to play in bars. Like Hits of the 70's, 80 's and 90's and 00's. They got to do that to get bookin's. Plus the people in the bars ain't really listenin', but they expect that band to sound JUST like the original recording. Look, the original band never played it like the original recording, if you heard them play it live, later. Why should I try to sound like someone else sounded ONE time in their life. But if you're a bar band, that's what the audience wants. They can all be drunk, but if you play a couple of notes different than the record, they notice it and don't like it. To them, you got it "wrong." You gotta play it like the jukebox.
We play songs that's in our hearts and play and sing it like it is in our hearts. If it ain't in my heart, I ain't playin' it or singin' it. Old country music, like our daddies listened to, Hank Williams, Sr, and Webb Pierce, Patsy Cline, and then we play some old school Gospel from Grandma's day, and we play old school blues, like Muddy, BB, Buddy Guy and all them, and we play some rockabilly. But we don't sound like the record on any of them. We just sound like us, which is hard enough.
Anyway, we let anybody who's good enough to be playin' somewhere play with us. If they sound real good, we step back and let them take front and center. You can't be a show off and hope to get along with other people. You can't be a mic hog or a spotlight hog and expect people to want to play with you again. Everybody got to be in the spotlight for a bit. Especially if they been helpin' you to sound good! You got to appreciate other peoples' talent and feelings.
If they have jobs, the job is to pay the bills so they can play music. As soon as they have spare time, they're out playing music and trying to find people to play with. It doesn't matter if they are poor or are doing well financially, it seems that serious musicians all feel this way. At least the ones I have met through Doc and his friends.
Doc: Yeah, that's pretty much right, Tondy. Hey, here's an old musician joke for you. What's the difference between a guitar player and a pizza?
Tondeleo: I don't know, what IS the difference between a guitar player and a pizza?
Doc: A pizza can feed a family of four... guitar player can't. Well, most of 'em can't. Not without a regular job.
But yeah, like you said, we want to play all the time. If we go out and are playin' a lot of times there's other players out there listenin' and they might ask if they can come up an' play with us.
Like me an' Rick was out playin' the other night. The rest of the Holy Ghost Band wasn't available, so just the two of us took the bookin'. We knew that there'd be people there who would join in and make a band and we'd sound ok.
We got home made and cheap equipment. That means we've had to learn to work around that. The other guys have nice stuff. I have to make my guitars sound as good as theirs or it won't work. They do't care how my stuff looks, just how it sounds.
Tondeleo: And what happened... did it work out that way?
Doc: Yeah, as we got set up, a drummer and bass player was listenin' to us tune up and hit a few notes. They joined us from the git-go. Then a lead player and a trumpet player of all things. That's the first time we had a blues trumpet player with us. He was good, and I didn't even get to meet him! He just come up and played real well, and then disappeared into the night after about an hour of playin.' Later Jim McWilliams said the guy on trumpet was Mike Robey. I never did get to meet him.
The drummer was Glen Strobel. He played a while and does a good job. Then Bobby Jones played drums lot of songs. He was the drummer for Roy Buchanan for like 30 years and was on a lot of albums with Roy and toured the world. He was there.
We had a couple lead players, too that night. Couple of bass players, too. A gal named JoAnn and a guy whose name I didn't get, and Troy Peterson swapped around from lead to bass. Bill Hull played lead for a while. People swapped in and out a lot.One reason we get a lot of people and other bands what like us is we sound different than most. We ain't had no music lessons, so a lot of what we do is homebrew.
Tondeleo: Homebrew???
Doc: Yeah, homebrew. It means we just sit down by the radio and try to figure out what they was playin'. We end up not playin' it exactly like the guy on the radio, but we discover a lot of other things while tryin' to play it.
You wouldn't get that if you took lessons. You'd just be taught how that guy played it and that would be all you learned. People ask me all the time how I learnt to play a song a certain way. It's not because I'm doin' it better, cause I'm not. It's because it's different, but still sounds pretty good.
Another part of it is because we don't play bar band music, and that is different.
Tondeleo: Can you explain what bar band music is?
Doc: Bar band music is what bands got to play in bars. Like Hits of the 70's, 80 's and 90's and 00's. They got to do that to get bookin's. Plus the people in the bars ain't really listenin', but they expect that band to sound JUST like the original recording. Look, the original band never played it like the original recording, if you heard them play it live, later. Why should I try to sound like someone else sounded ONE time in their life. But if you're a bar band, that's what the audience wants. They can all be drunk, but if you play a couple of notes different than the record, they notice it and don't like it. To them, you got it "wrong." You gotta play it like the jukebox.
Anyway, we let anybody who's good enough to be playin' somewhere play with us. If they sound real good, we step back and let them take front and center. You can't be a show off and hope to get along with other people. You can't be a mic hog or a spotlight hog and expect people to want to play with you again. Everybody got to be in the spotlight for a bit. Especially if they been helpin' you to sound good! You got to appreciate other peoples' talent and feelings.
