Category: Influences

I live in West Tennessee and I also grew up here.  Most of the television stations that we watched were from Memphis.  The most popular radio stations that we listened to were also from Memphis.  I would love to be able to say that I know a lot about Memphis music because I listened to it all when I was a kid but this is absolutely not true.  My knowledge of Memphis music was relatively limited especially when it came to soul music.  For me, Memphis soul music was Al Green and later Isaac Hayes.  And the only Isaac Hayes music I knew was the Theme from Shaft.  Even if I had heard any of the other great music from Stax Records, I had little or no idea that it was related to this Memphis institution.  My knowledge of Memphis soul music was limited to what they would tell me on the top 40 stations that catered mainly to white pre-teens and teenagers.  Only the occasional soul hit would make it on these stations at the time the Stax Records was making a name for themselves and I was young enough that I wasn’t paying attention. 

When I was a kid, my parents bought me a banjo.  I had been playing ukulele for several years and had started playing guitar.  But I was strictly a rhythm guitar player.  I had no fingerpicking skills.  When I started trying to play the banjo, I quickly became frustrated.  I never felt comfortable enough with my technique to even begin to develop any speed.  The books I was using to learn were either to simple or confusing.  The book that I had that I didn’t pay any attention to was Pete Seeger’s “How to play the 5-String Banjo”.  At the time, I barely knew who Pete Seeger was.  The book focused on simple techniques and styles that I didn’t really want to play.  I was a big Steve Martin fan and I wanted to play bluegrass like him.  I also wanted to play like Earl Scruggs.  How would I ever learn to play like them?

When I was growing up, my parents had a relatively large record collection. I would occasionally look through it to see what kind of things they listened to.  Sometimes I would find something worth checking out.  There are a handful of albums that I found in my parents’ record collection that had a lasting influence on me.  The five albums that I discuss below have had a lasting impact on me and my music.