Sunday, March 25, 2007

Music Lessons

When I turned seven, my mom asked me if I wanted to play an instrument. I said, "Cello." She said, "Hell, no." Too expensive. She said, "Guitar looks kinda like a cello, right? How about the guitar?" I shrugged my shoulders into saying yes.

My first teacher, my only teacher, was mom's friend Janet Boucher. Her house was hidden up in the hills, and she kept chickens, goats, and a horse on her property. She had long black hair, wore caftans, baked her own bread and drove a VW van. The first song I ever learned was "Stewball," a song about a racehorse by Peter, Paul and Mary. The second one I learned was "Bobby McGee" by Janis Joplin. The third song I learned was "Folsom Prison Blues," by Johnny Cash. The forth song I learned was "Blowin' in the Wind," by Bob Dylan. I mustered up the courage and told Janet I wanted to learn something by John Denver, my teen heart-throb at the time. The next week she taught me "Leaving on a Jet Plane."

From then on it was John Denver every week for a long, long time.

2 comments:

eflows said...

I'll give ya a dollar if you can remember his 'catchphrase' when he was famous -- the thing he'd say all the time that people would cheer at.

Christa M. Forster said...

Far Out!