There are at least three ways you can tell I’m not a real musician.  Other than by listening to me, I mean.

Close Enough is Good Enough.  A real musician would do that extra take or at least learn how to “patch” a rough spot.  I would maybe do that, if the circumstances were right, and back at the beginning I did give a good shot at figuring out how this recorder works, but I’ve now peacefully given up on that.  I happen to think this particular song sounds pretty good; of the ones I’ve done, the vocal is probably least objectionable on this one.  But there are some spots where the vocal goes kind of goofy, and I could have fixed those places.  In some contexts that could legitimately be adjudged laziness—and I have plenty of those contexts—but not in this one.  It’s just a general acceptance of general limitations, an understanding that even if I fixed that one bad spot, I’d probably just screw up somewhere else.  I’m proud of myself for that.  It’s good to be a joyful amateur at something.

The same is true of learning songs.  Real musicians talk about learning a particular solo from a record note for note, dropping the needle over and over again on a particular part and playing along with the song.  I never did that.  I rarely have sat down with the intention of learning a song.  If I like a song I’ll listen to it enough times that eventually I’ll just know it, more or less, and more or less is all I aspire to.  Nowadays most songs are tabbed or otherwise transcribed on the internet to a close enough degree that I can find that, if there’s a chord I couldn’t figure out, somebody else has figured it out and put it out there for the world to know (except “Solsbury Hill.”  Nobody has found a way to teach me that impossible song with that crazy, made-up time signature.) 

Real musicians don’t settle for close enough or for more or less.  Real musicians wouldn’t have to have somebody else tell them what that chord is.

I’m Not Interested in the Gear.  A real guitar player would know the difference between a Martin D-45 and a D-28 and would be interested in hearing other people go on and on about the various models of guitars.  I do not and am not.  The guitar I’ve played on most of the songs is a Guild I bought about two years ago.  Guild is an old American brand, but now the guitars are made in China.  I had owned (and still own, mostly) about a half dozen guitars over the years, several good ones but never a really really good one.  I went to the music store  two years ago knowing only that I wanted to buy a really good guitar and that I wanted it to be black.  I figured I’d spend about $2,000 and wanted to get a Martin or a Taylor, which is what most really good guitar players play.  I found that you can get a Martin or a Taylor for that price, but it won’t be one of the really good ones; it’ll just be one of the good ones.  The guitar salesman, a guy called Harlem Slim who plays Delta blues on a National guitar, kept showing me the Guild, which was just under a thousand dollars.  I agreed that it sounded great, better than the Martins and Taylors I was comparing it to, and I still think that.  I go to that music store every couple of weeks to buy strings, and I always spend a half hour or so playing their guitars and reminding myself how good my guitar at home sounds.   I’m very pleased with my purchase.  I tell Harlem Slim that every time I see him.  I just wish it were black. It’s a sunburst color.  Harlem Slim’s not black, either.  Nor is he a sunburst color.  He’s whiter than I am.

I didn’t play the Guild on this song.  I played my Daion, which I bought at Sam Gibbs Music Store in Wichita Falls in the summer of 1981 for about $360 and is the guitar I learned to play on.  I named it Shakespeare, which is kind of embarrassing.  My old friends still ask me about Shakespeare.  The only other guitar I’ve had that I named was a 12-string Fender I named Beethoven, which got stolen.

I’d recorded this song back in February with the Guild, putting down two guitar tracks and a harmonica, and it sounded good, except for the vocal, where the P’s were exploding all over the place.  But a couple of weeks ago I plugged the Daion into the amp, which I hardly ever did before, and liked the way it sounded—the guitar has a cedar top, which gives it a woodier, more muffled sound, and a cheap “hotdot” pickup, which gives it a rough, tinny sound and makes it sound more like one of those old blues recordings.   So I re-recorded it with just the Daion and the vocal.

Daion went out of business probably 25 years ago.  The company wasn’t around long.  It was a Korean brand, I think, based out of Dallas insofar as its US operations, and the guitars were very good and have kind of a cult following.  The Daion has been with me longer than anything else I own, and I’d sacrifice the Guild to keep the Daion if I had to make the choice.  I don’t know why anybody would make me make that choice.

I Don’t Worship the Blues.  I’m a bit embarrassed and bewildered to admit that I’m not a blues nut.  I respect the blues and I certainly acknowledge its . . . hugeness.  And everything else about it.  And the blues is in everything anybody listens to anymore, of course, including country music, which I am a nut about, but I’m not talking about the blues as an influence on other music or about any particular blues artist or blues song.  I’m talking about The Blues, the classic form itself, that simple 12-bar (usually) format characterized by a flatted third and seventh note and a “woke up this morning and did something” couplet that opens up the verse followed by a third line to complete the verse. 

I need to be careful here and point out that I do not dislike the blues and in fact I love some of it, mostly the acoustic Delta blues stuff.  I also love that delicate, lyrical Piedmont blues playing style, which doesn’t get as much adulation as the Delta blues stuff.  (I am less interested in the Memphis/Chicago schools of blues, but that’s more because I am less interested in electric guitars than acoustic guitars; blistering leads don’t do it for me, whether it’s Buddy Guy or Stevie Ray Vaughn.   I like one guitar doing a little bit of everything.  So Mississippi John Hurt, yes; B.B. King, no.)

But I’m supposed to love the blues.  I’m supposed to want to hear every recorded version of Elmore James singing “Dust My Broom” and be able to talk intelligently about the difference between the version recorded for Okeh Records in 1947 and the version he did for Stax Volt in 1951 with Little Walter on harmonica.  I’m making that stuff up, but you get the picture:  I’m supposed to live and breathe the arcana of it all.

I don’t say any of that sarcastically or facetiously.  Nobody is making me feel that way, and I don’t resent or doubt anybody who claims to love the blues and be a student of the blues.  I envy those people, in fact.  I really do think I should feel a deeper love of that music, because I do believe in its cultural importance and its aesthetic worth.  I’ve been listening to Bob Dylan’s fascinating XM radio show, and he plays a lot of that stuff, along with lots of obscure old stuff from every genre and epoch, and he knows every inch of it.  I love hearing people talk about it and I love reading about it and I listen to it closely, but I listen to it with more intellect than passion; the music itself is just not mapped into my DNA.  When I listen to it, there are, as I said, some songs I love very much (for instance this one by Richard “Rabbit” Brown, which mesmerizes me), and I appreciate it all, but appreciating is not the same as loving.  I listen to Hank Williams because I love those songs, that voice, everything about it.  I listen to Elmore James because I respect him and get a kick out of him.  There’s a difference.  Real musicians genuinely love both Hank Williams and Elmore James.  I’m just a spectator of the blues.

Those are three ways you can tell I’m not a real musician.  You can tell I’m not a real writer by this crappy, toneless Week 18 blog entry. 

Here’s Mississippi John Hurt.