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| Music Notes |
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| JOHNSONS I LUTTRELLS I NEVADA SMITH I JACK FRYE I DIE-CAST I SAILPLANES |
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Now this is a place that is pretty important for me, I love good music as you probably do also. It's one of those things in life that speaks about ourselves in ways thats sometimes hard to put to words. I think a little bit of who we are can be defined by the music style we listen to and the importance or lack of the same we give it.
I would ask you one favor before you either leave or continue this page, is that you consider your own personal music likes or dislikes, how it comforts you in those sometimes much needed quiet moments at the end of a hectic day at work, how certain styles of music completley bore or annoy you, and then try to realize, everybody is different and on their way to someday settling in on that "perfect sound" that only you can appreciate.
This section is gonna be my feeble attempt to describe how my settling in process has finally arrived in a person I consider the greatest musician on the planet today that plays my favorite all time instrument, The Guitar.
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| If you haven't guessed who this STEVE MORSE guy is yet, he's on the right above. |
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My story begins when I believe I was about 9 years old in the fourth grade in 1963. You im sure have heard the same thing over and over again. There was this little four piece band from Liverpool and - your right, The Beatles. The rest is history, but, my parents and my Aunt and Uncle Fred and Jean Mesquit always were listening to all types of music back then. In fact it turned out that my grandfather Ken's five brothers were all accomplished musicians during the hay'day's of the Big Band era also. So I suppose you could say that music became very important to me at a tender age and continues to this day. Uncle Fred could always be heard singing around the house all types of great tunes and he had and still does have a wonderful voice. |
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The next thing I knew, all of us boys were doing the Beatle hair look thing in the school bathrooms during recess to try and impress the girls. Whew. |
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My mother was one that enjoyed Tommy Dorsey and the big bands because she was a terrific dancer with all those classic floor moves that seemed so fluidic and smooth, all the men wanted to dance with her. My father never danced though, and he did'nt mind if mom enjoyed herself on the floor because she was so great to watch, a pure natural. When we were kids, believe it or not, she would wake us up for school to the tune of "Green Onions" by Booker "T" and the MG's! She also loved Wes Montgomery and his silky smooth guitar riffs that seemed to relax her. I know if mom were here today, and you asked her who her favorite musician was, it would be Wes.
Later on she actually appreciated groups like, The Alan Parsons Project, Pink Floyd, Brazil 66 and of course, Neil Diamond the Jazz Singer. Then she used her dancing talent to teach others in Western and Ballroom Swing dancing and competed all over California to her enjoyment. Mom was a great influence on us kids and I shall always cherish those moments with her listening to great music togather. |
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Now dad listened to a whole different type of music. He used to bring home new stuff all the time. For a while there he was bringing Bill Cosby into our home and we all busted guts every nite and when company came over, dad would have to break out Bill and before you knew it, everybody was on the floor with tears of laughter. Then he brought home this radical guitar sounding stuff that seemed at that time rebellious, Dick Dale and the Del-Tones and his Surf Guitar. Wow, that was different and he used to turn it up loud. Our nearest neighbor was a mile away so you could blow the windows out if you wanted to. Then he bought a new album called "Los Indios Trabajaras, Always in my Heart". This was another style of play that had us kids realizing a new style of guitar play, one that was Acoustic and beautiful in tone. The story then was, two young Indians from Brazil were brought into RCA Victors studios from the jungle to cut an album. The boys had learned to play a rudimentary, primitive style along with their tribal songs the story goes, making their way to the market places of Rio de Janeiro. I have heard through the years since that this was a marketing ploy on the public to sell records, Im not sure, but their sound is captivating and has stayed with me all these years. Maria Elena was their breakthrough hit album in 1963.
Then dad introduced us to "The Ventures" with Walk Don't Run, a fantastic album that was the beginning of what I thought the electric guitar ought to sound like with that R&R flavor. He bought almost all of their music back then, but the one titled "Outer Limits" was totally cool. It had a Hot Rod on the cover overlooking the city lights below and the stars above that conveyed a new frontier in music sound, and because of the records spacey reverb tone, it put us in a mood of total musical enjoyment. I think I wore out that record to the point of destroying it beyond recognition. |
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| Up to this point and at the age of around fourteen, I'm pretty much engrained into the belief that the electric guitar was all I wanted to hear and well done at that. My cousin Freddy Mesquit Jr., by now had taken up electric guitar lessons and would play around the family with his hollow-body Gibson starburst beauty. He was quite good and loved to play the blues along with a harmonica, and he even taught me a few pointers on that harp. Well, this just entrenched me further into Guitardom. |
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Then, something again, totally from left field and new came into the Johnson home via their eldest son, me. They came like a storm in high gear with no brakes. Led Zeppelin and Jimmy Page. It was my fault, I talked mom into letting me buy the ZOSO (LZ IV) album much to her disliking and worry as to what my father would think. I told her I would only listen to it alone while dad was out of town. That worked and I brought the record home with a new excitement and curiosity. Well my little deal with mom did'nt last too long as I wanted to hear Jimmy's guitar constantly and when dad finally heard it one day as he walked into the house he said and I'll always remember the expression on his face, "What the heck is that NOISE!" He then proceeded to instruct me how to listen to this noisy so called music with people around, low, low, low but not off. He always did appreciate music for music's sake.
The rest is all history now for us teenagers that opted for this style of play, They became probably the greatest Rock Band the world has ever seen. And my little brother, how did Led Zeppelin effect him? At first he did'nt care for it at all, but soon he realized, this is really different and cool stuff. He also became a Zep-a-holic. All my fault. |
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<<< This was that Revolutionary Album |
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I left home in 1973 and joined the US Navy. Stationed in Virginia I continued searching out new R&R talent and settled on some groups like Robin Trower, ZZ Top, Frank Marino, Deep Purple, Supertramp and Kansas to name a few. Robin Trower and Frank Marino emerged as my favorites. |
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| Then in 1975, another little band, three piece this time and yet unknown without much radio play to speak of attracted my eye and my ear. Enter "RUSH". My roommate Jack from Texas, a die-hard ZZ Top fan and I lived in the base barracks at the time. He asked me if I had heard Rush yet. I said a little bit and that they sounded new and had a vocalist that had the highest and strongest controlled voice I had heard yet, plus the guitar sounded really tough. So I went out and bought their new release. It was "Fly By Night". Alex Lifeson suddenly overwelmed me with his technical and sustaining tonal wizardry that Jack and I were "Rushisized" forever. Then guys would stop by our room wanting to hear this new sound and we all had a good time of it. |
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I was discharged from the Navy in 1977 and came home to California, bringing my audio equipment and record collection with me. My brother Mark had a ball going through all those albums, some he had never heard of. So he and his friends enjoyed alot of new music as I did playing it for them. This is getting long winded, but bear with me because what happened next was what I think my final growth step in a long run of guitar music that has lasted with an artist of extrordinary talent to date since 1978! Mark was about to introduce me to someone equally as profound as Led Zeppelin was to him and I some 10-12 years earlier. |
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Now, by this time there was nobody greater than Jimi Hendrix, Frank Marino, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top and my old favorite, Robin Trower.I was now requiring large doses of technical guitar notation with a bunch of tempo changes that required the utmost talent, similar to a Flemenco type intensity and punch of Paco de Lucia. |
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Introducing, STEVE MORSE |
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Next page |
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| This Website designed and maintained by Eric Johnson. Copyright (c) 2000 - 2003. |
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