Tag Archives: guitar
Preserving Creativity
September 17, 2009When I was working for the Demopolis Times a few years ago I made a couple of great friends by the name of Guy and Charlie. They’re both in their early 60s, single, and salesmen at the Times.
Charlie has a great eye for photography and he can be found all over west Alabama early in the morning taking wildlife photography. Charlie is not great with a computer so I’ve been essential in showing him how to store, color correct, and share his photos.
Guy is also a very creative person. For many of his younger years he was a photographer for the MIami Herald. He has a great collection of photos to prove it such as some backstage shots of Johnny Cash in 1969. He’s also an am amazing guitarist. Often he’ll teach me some things on the guitar and I’ll teach him some tricks on Photoshop.
Both of these guys are not in the best of health. Charlie has had Cancer and Guy is always in and out of the hospital. They get around just fine, but sometimes I get the impression they are thinking about what they have to leave when they’re gone. I built Charlie a website for him to upload and share his photos. (Still don’t think he has got the hang of uploading them.) Guy has an old recording of songs that he has written that we are trying to digitize and get copyright protected.
This weekend Guy played a song that he had written about a little girl he knew with leukemia. I had never heard it before, but it was very beautiful. He wanted me to help him record it and share it on the internet. I got a pretty good recording of it and some photos to go with it. Here is a quick video I put together of the song.
Posted in Music, Video |
Death of a Rockstar
March 12, 2008About a month ago I got a rare call to my parents house from an old friend I have not seen in about four years. John is the kind of the live hard die young rocker type. But he never went far with his band, and drugs always seemed to overshadow his music. In the years since I last saw him he had some pretty serious drug addictions.
I never fully trusted him but we both liked drinking and had similar musical taste that found us playing the guitar together a few times. He seemed very lonely, bored and he said he was sober. I too didn’t have a lot of friends because I’d been gone since the start of college and most of my friends had moved away. So I would go to his house occasionaly(he lived with his father) and bring a six pack. We would shoot the shit and pound some beers. I wouldn’t go out with him because he had no money, no drivers liscence, no car, and no job. We would talk about old times and I would try to point him in the right direction. (more…)
Posted in Music |