"The Song(s)"

One would assume that a young boy learning to play guitar in 1964-65 would cut his teeth on some of the hottest rock and roll tunes of the day. Hits from Elvis, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were certainly at the top of most young guitar slingers' "'gotta learn that one," list. Too, there was the Ventures, and even some country pickers like Chet Atkins.

While most young lads learning the guitar were hot after copying something popular or familiar - not this one.

For some reason, other than the foundational chord patterns of G-C-D, there was, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home."

That's correct. You read it right!

I don't know if it was the Southern roots that helped bring a Civil War classic to my fretboard. Or, if it was merely the fact that this tune was pathetically easy to self-teach. Whatever the reasons, it became my very first "have tune will travel." I played it every time I picked up the guitar, and often enough to make my poor mother plead, "Can't you play something besides that?"

After several million passes at, "WJCMH," the list would come to include classics such as, "Red River Valley," "You Are My Sunshine," "On Top Of Old Smokey" (which was also known by its Weird Al-like spoof, "On Top Of Spaghetti"), "Boogie Woogie," and finally, something that required more than one finger from the fretting hand, "The Wildwood Flower."

Somewhere along the way, the aforementioned Ventures caught my attention. As my technique improved, I began to learn their hits: "Walk Don't Run," "Tequila," "Pipeline," and of course, "Wipeout."

Every drummer in the world knew, "Wipeout." It was obligatory. And so, every guitar player in the world - playing in bands with those drummers, also had to learn that song. You just weren't cool if you didn't know how to play it. It was, by far, THE most popular, and most requested of all tunes-played-by-every-garage-band-there-was from the 1960's.

A close second was the Animals' monster hit, "House Of The Rising Sun."

Long before MTV and You Tube, there was the transistor radio, 45's, LP's and eight track tapes. Learning songs and guitar parts in those days meant that you had to either buy the record, or wear out the old rotary dial on the family's Western Electric telephone by repeated calls to the local radio station request line.

The latter of these was a quite the challenge. On top of annoying the disc jockey who answered the request line, you also had to sit for prolonged periods of time with the guitar on your lap - waiting and hoping for "your song" to be played next. When (and if)  it was finally played, you only got one pass to try and cop what you heard. Then, it was back to the phone.

Learning from a record was not much better. Since there was no good way to slow the music down, you had to pick up the record player stylus over and over and try to place it back on the record in the same place every time. This is, perhaps, one of the things that gave my mother high blood pressure, and caused my father to drink (he stopped drinking when I was twelve, thank The Good Lord). Every record in our house had "potholes" at the different places where great guitar parts appeared.

Through the years, having covered hundreds of tunes - while playing for all sorts of audiences, there are "guitar" songs that stick in a player's memory. None more than THE guitar song of all-time: "Free Bird." After forty-seven years of gigs, rarely has there been a time when someone didn't shout that ageless request at some point during the show. I have even heard it at weddings and a piano recital or two. The Good Book says that, "you reap what you sow." This being true, the endless requests for, "Free Bird," were obviously payback for all those annoying telephone calls to the radio station's request line. Perhaps that voice in every crowd was the same DJ - stalking me.

Naaah.

In the twilight of this guitar player's career, after having written and published an extensive song catalogue of original material, and now while composing themes for movies and television shows, my mind often drifts back to the beginning.

I think of radios, record players, and a song.

THE song.

Who would have known that, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," could hold such a place in an old man's fading memory.