Music and My (not blood realted but a huge part of my life) Uncle

 After almost 2 hours of a wonderful and meaningful conversation with my sort of Uncle Steve, here are some of the highlights. 

          Andrew: Did you ever play an instrument when you were younger?

Steve: I played guitar when I was about 13-14 years old. My grandparents gave me lessons, I also took lessons from Allen's music store, which at the time was above a drug store.

 

Andrew: And so are your grandparents' musicals?

 

Steve: To my knowledge, my family was not musical. It's just not in us, we're gamblers. Give us some dice and a deck of cards, and we are set. And with guitar, I am envious and jealous of anyone who can play an instrument...

 

Steve: My problem was, I'm left-handed, and my folks bought me a right-handed guitar.

 

Andrew: Do you think if you were given a left-handed guitar, you would've pursued more of an interest in the guitar.

 

Steve: If that were the case, then yes. 

My uncle continued to talk about different events that surrounded his earliest memories of playing guitar, which was performing the only song he ever learned, Secret Agent Man by Johnny Rivers. 

     

I was then asked a question by my aunt - "When did you realize that this (music) comes pretty natural? Like that moment down at the beach when you joined that band at the restaurant we were eating at, you didn't know the tunes yet you played the rest of the night with them..." 

I truly give my credit to my jazz professor at the Fine Arts Center, Steve Waston. He pushed me to learn, to hear, and to understand music within the root of the sound and not the song itself. To deconstruct the song and understand why this musician was doing this or why they played this at this specific part of the song. After years of being spoonfed that mentality, you start to understand where you stand in music and how you assess the piece, whether you know it or not. Now moving back to the real star of this interview.

Andrew: What is your preferred music to listen to?

 

Steve: Well, I love all kinds of music, but blues and jazz are my favorites. 

 

Andrew: Any music you don't like?

 

Steve: I'm not much on pop music, especially modern-day, and I definitely do not like most rap. Mainly because when rap first came out, it was vulgar, and it was killing people. You know modern rap is a little better, the words and lyrics have more of a positive influence. And I know that it came out of the ghetto, and they were writing about what they were experiencing, and I can't blame them, it just never connected with me.

 

Andrew: What was the first album you ever bought?

 

Steve: The first blues album I ever bought was B.B. King's "Live in Cook County Jail" and I fell in love with it. 

 Quite the beautiful and soulful album if you ask me. I highly suggest giving it a listen. Although, you may not be the biggest fan of how out of tune the piano sounds in the introduction...sorry :).

 As the interview went on, various stories and jokes were made. One story that stuck out to me in particular was the story of Willie Nelson's contract, which was required for any event or venue he played. This contract stated that there were to be no cops within a 2 block radius of the music venue, and let me tell you, no one wanted to disrespect Willie. 

I pitched the question, "What do you think of white people singing the blues?" He responded by explaining how he loves the blues as long as they are original to whoever wrote them (racially). He does love Elvis, but he doesn't appreciate how he stole the music from the black man and made huge amounts of money off of it. Also, after discussing what Paul Simon did in Africa, he said, "I don't believe that most artists intentionally steal from a culture. I think they have good intentions, and they are only inspired. However, I do believe the media, producers, and managers have malicious intent in making money off of someone else's music just because of differences in social class and race."

There is so much more left in this interview, and I wish I could put all two hours within this document, but I have been instructed that I cannot do that. I will say that the full two-hour interview was truly one of the greatest two hours I've ever taken out of my day. I not only got closer to my Uncle Steve, but I discovered a lot about the multitude of impacts that music has on different generations surrounding me. How concerts were different. How everyone is frustrated because everything is digital now. All I could do was sit back in awe of how my Aunt and Uncle shared this life together, growing and experiencing music. It was truly inspiring, and to add to the means, this is a list they provided me of every artist that they've ever seen live. I hope your jaw will be as far on the ground as mine was.