Acoustic History

Sister Karen taught me how to play guitar in the second grade, and I was playing on the altar in church back in the 1970’s when Mass was a little folky. I was a student at St. Athanasius School.

Athanasius was an Egyptian bishop who was exiled by the Byzantine Empire. Some of his views about the Trinity were ahead of their time.

My Greek friend, Elaine Jerome (whose name means “holy memory”), thinks it’s cool that I went to a school named after a Greco-Roman saint.

I had a small guitar back then. No telling where it is today.

I grew up in a string family if you’ll indulge me by allowing my extension to the Farmer family. My mom’s dad, George Farmer, played the ukulele. I wish I could remember all the songs he sang, but he covered “Up on the Housetop” like it was nobody’s business. My uncle, Jim, who served in Vietnam, played guitar. Seems like he and his friend Paul played Beatles.

I was pretty into the Beatles at age five. I remember being disappointed the day my mom told me that each time we heard them on WHAS radio, they weren’t downtown in the station at that moment.

My mom didn’t play guitar, but she was a soprano and used to sing weddings back in the day. My father and his family were not musically inclined.

In church I played songs like “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” but the first song Sr. Karen taught me was “Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley.” Sr. Karen had long red hair and blue eyes. She was one of the nice nuns. I suppose she influenced my early desire to become a nun. And a guitarist.

Playing guitar in church might not sound like fun to you, but I had a blast. One day I decided to do my best Charlie Watts impression on the altar. Yes, I know he played drums, but the idea was just to stay “cool” during my performance. Trouble is, my mom was in the church that day. Boy, was she mad when I got home! But I was hooked on performing. In grade school I fully intended to become a rock guitarist, just like Keef!

In high school I didn’t play much. Guess I was too busy shaking the pom-poms. They’re percussion instruments, right? The dream was dying.

Lynnell and I played a bit freshman year at Centre.

It wasn’t until the fellowship days at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center that I bought a Yamaha at Guitar Gallery on Richmond. I bought my case from in Rockin’ Robin on Shepherd from Eric Danheim of the Hollisters.

My best playing was always with my friend, Gregg Barré, who sat next to me in the fellow’s room in surgical pathology. Gregg was straight up from the bayou. We covered Toni Price (who covered Gwil Owen) and Neil Young. I wrote a song called “Alone in My Room, Again,” which Gregg later changed to “A Bone in My Nose, Again.” You had to be there.

Gregg (see photo above) was an altar child at a Catholic church when he was a kid.

Gregg’s got more guitars than I do, but don’t bring that up with his wife, Barrow. I’ve got two guitars now. The Houston Yamaha and a Telecaster I got one year for Mother’s Day. Gotta have that twang. Ted of the band Downtown Senate takes care of my guitars at the Music Loft of Carrboro.

When I plugged in I got a really super cool instructor, Dan Bergstralh. He’s got some UT-Austin School of Music roots in him. Plus some other genetic codes that couldn’t come from his dad. Unless his dad has the blues.

Dan seems to like Louisville boy Dave Grissom as much as I do.

Dan also taught my daughter to play before he moved to Cambridge for a Marshall fellowship.
He visited us for a living room jam session on his last trip to the States.

My guitar playing days aren’t quite the same since I injured my left second finger a few years ago. It hurts to play, but barre chords are a snap. The finger doesn’t want to bend, anyway. The hand surgeon in Chapel Hill says I have reflex sympathetic dystrophy. Dr. Bynum is pretty sympathetic, too, cause he plays guitar.

I don’t even play regular these days. If you pressed me to play something now it would likely be Lucinda Williams’ “Drunken Angel” or Tift Merritt’s “Virginia.”

My daughter rocks though, and it’s good to have the sound of those strings in the house again. It’s all about Foo with Ella. She’s a bit taken with Dave Grohl at the moment. (I found out this New Year's Eve that my friend Jessica once went to a tupperware party with Dave.)

I think guitarists are pretty cool, no? So it’s not hard to see why the protagonist in my novel manuscript would fall for a guitarist.

“I have a friend, she’s fallen for a guitarist.” Right.

So there’s a story behind the story. But I’m not talking about that.