September - Carry On Bob

Hi Brummies,

I greet you from the confines of my hospital bed where I have been for the past couple of weeks, what's that you say? Bob in bed? Ill? Yes folks, I have succumbed to some form of hideous illness brought on by too much Brown and Mild, Pork Scratchings and too few Villa victories at the beginning of the season!! No doubt you Bluenose gits out there will be laughing your socks off at AV's poor start but no doubt it is a part of Martin O'Neils greater plan. So here I am, Ward 7, suffering, but as we say at the luxury BRUMBEAT Towers 'The Blog Must Go On', thats dedication folks. I am surrounded by a pleasant enough bunch of fellow patients and the nurses and Doctors are all very nice folk too and are looking after me with loving care. I'd like to offer my apologies to those of you have written to me and are awaiting an answer but now you know why!

LES PAUL

So, with a large tear in either eye we bid a farewell to the luminescent Les Paul at the great age of 94. Many folk have spoken about his demise so I don't have much more to say than they. It is, however worth saying that the sound of the rock guitar today is a result of the work he did to produce an instrument of such distinction and it is is fitting that that guitar is commonly known as a 'Les Paul' and not a Gibson. That being a fact, his name will live forever more. As a lighthearted aside, when my daughter was a teenager and was trying to impress one of her guitar playing boyfreinds she said "My Dad has a very nice 'John Paul' at home" - he must have thought that I had the Pope round for dinner!!!

HOW DID YOU DO IT??

I was thinking the other day about how difficult it was to learn new songs way back when, after all there were no portable recording devices, cassettes, CDs etc?
I recall walking four miles just to listen to Karl Perkins "Matchbox" on someones Dansette. I also got to know someone who, in turn, knew someone else who had some LP's from America and we would trog on over to his house to listen to Willie Dixon or Howlin Wolf then it would be a case of writing the words down and trying to copy the melody line on the guitar and then on the long walk home would repeatedly sing the song so as not to forget it, or if I had the bus fare I would go upstairs and play the melody line on my guitar as well. It occurred to me that there must have been hordes of tennagers all doing the same thing at the same time, in the early hours of the morning people would be woken from their beds by the passing by of a grotty, spotty youth singing Smokestack Lightnin'. Later, at dance halls I would hear other groups do those songs as well but everybodys lyrics seemed to be different I guessed that one person probably knew a bit of the guitar part and they would just make up their lyrics and melody to go with the part they actually knew. In the end I dont think anybody really cared because it was all creative fun and got the girls dancing.

REUNION
Nice to hear that Lee Stevens is making the long journey across 'The Pond' to meet up with Johnny Neal and others from the golden age. Have a fab night you guys.

OK, I'm back to my moaning and groaning to get the attention of that crackin brunette "Nurse, nurse - I think I need another bed bath?"

Cheers and Take Care

Bob

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