Troubador

I love that word, ‘troubador’. I had some romantic notions about it when I was young. I thought it meant you took your instrument with you everywhere, and if anybody asked you to play, you did. I did just that for more than ten years. Through most of that, I didn’t have a car. Or a home. And I only occasionally had a job, so playing and singing kept me fed. I played anything I knew, and if I didn’t know it, I’d fake it. The funniest thing is the number of people who’d ask, “Can you play that thing?” I mean I took a lot of crap, just for being that weirdo who took a guitar everywhere he went. Did they think it was just for decoration?

It wasn’t my only musical training, but it was some of the best. I interfaced daily with the musical needs of people on the street; both people I knew and people I didn’t. I don’t think that’s even possible, today. I started before there was a a Walkman, when personal, portable music meant a tinny little handheld AM radio. Give the Beatles and the Monkees credit for figuring out how to sound great on those little buggers. But campfires, barbecues, picnics, bar mitzvahs, reunions, any kind of party, there was virtually no sort of human gathering I couldn’t ruin with my songs, my stories and my guitar.