Guitar Players

[Nick Dilley]

I've played for years, but just joined the forum today! Hello all!

[ronPrice]

I've been at this thread for nearly 5 years. I'll update whatever I've sent with this post.-Ron Price, Australia
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SINGALONGS AND MY TWO-2 RING BINDERS: 1952 TO 2012

Part 1:

This 2200 word, 5 page font 14, essay explores the story of the gradual evolution of the singalong booklets in my life: 1952 to 2012. The first booklets of music in my life, at least those I remember, go back to the late 40s and early 50s, 1948 to 1952, when I was four to eight years old. The first booklet of music, though, that I put together myself in order to run singalongs was in the late 1960s or early 70s, when I was in my mid-20s.

From, say, 1952 to 1972, then, I ran along on the singalong booklets of others: my parents’, my friends’ and, of course by the decade 1962 to 1972, the occasional purchased songbook. By the 1960s I had no TV and it was not until about 1977 that I had a TV in my home. I mention this because, by the late 50s and early 60s, TV was a useful source of singing material. During a period of some 60 years, from 1952 to 2012 I have been involved in singalongs in one form or another.

In the last ten years though, 2002 to 2012, singalongs using booklets of songs I created took place for the most part at an aged care facility, an Australian government-funded aged care home, called the Ainslie House. This collection of buildings is located beside the Tamar River, an estuary, that runs beside George Town and Low Head in Tasmania. The residents of this home in this the oldest town in Australia, live in a modern and attractive facility about one kilometre from the Bass Strait, an extension of the Great Southern Ocean at the other end of the world from where I was born and grew to maturity in Canada.

I have been in at least two dozen aged care buildings in my life. These places where home means living with many new people under one roof, getting used to other people doing some of the everyday things a person might have previously done for themselves and by themselves as well as working out new balances between one’s need for privacy and the inevitable community nature of such a life--these places are now an increasingly burgeoning presence across our civilization as war-babies like myself and baby-boomers all come into their late adulthood(60 to 80) incrementally year after year. Any child born in the first year of WW2 in 1939 will be seventy-three in 2012.

Part 2:

As a lecturer in aged care studies, programs in which I finished my teaching career in an Australian technical and further education college dealing with students studying aged care and other specialist training programs in various human services certificate and diploma courses, I became as I had so often before become “an instant expert.” I am now an expert in more and more subjects and know less and less about more and more, or so it seems, as the years go on in our information society.

A range of different levels of care as well as specialist services are available here in these buildings by the sea under one management and organizational structure: high and low level care, short and long term care, independent units and shared accommodation, transition as well as particular and multi-service care are all available under one roof. Care and services such as: respite care, care for particular cultural needs and health conditions, care for end-of-life clients, for war veterans, for the socially and financially disadvantaged, for the mentally ill and for people living in rural or remote areas. The flotsam and jetsam of society are all here on their last legs in they had the money to get in--that is.

To a lesser extent I also led singalongs in the decade 1992 to 2002 in the Baha’i community, a group I had, by then, been associated with for four decades by 1992. My final singalongs in classrooms took place as my teaching in FT, PT and volunteer roles wound down in that same decade. These singalongs became rare events in my last years in Perth Western Australia in large Baha’i communities and the smaller ones in northern Tasmania where I lived after 1999 and in the several classrooms where I taught.

In the dozen years or more that I lived in Tasmania, 1999 to 2012, guitar-playing and singalongs slipped to the periphery of my life with one exception of one main bastion of activity—with the old and dying. In some ways it was fitting that the last few years of the singalongs in my life, 2002-2012, involved mostly senior citizens, the aged, old people, those in the decades of late adulthood(60 to 80) and old age(80++)--here in George Town. I used large-print songbooks published in the UK with a small singing group, choir was not quite the right word, until 2005. I say “fitting” because the content of these booklets was mainly for the two generations born during and before WW2--in the first five decades of the twentieth century—the earliest years in Canada and Australia of the activity of the Baha’i community, the religious community I have been associated with since the 1950s.

From 2008 to 2012, though, the material in my two volumes, my two 2-ring binders, that I used for singalongs was for all age groups. It must be said though that there are very few songs that originated in the period, the two generations that were born in the years from 1972 to 2012, circa.
Part 3:

The group born in the years after about 1972 will find few songs that were popular from their years of listening experience in these two binders. I did not listen to the music of those two generations. For the music of some two generations(1972 to 1992 and 1992 to 2012), of a great mass of popular music; for example, the songs of groups like Abba, among a host of others, I never bought the sheet music nor did I learn how to play the songs in some personally inventive way by figuring out the chords. So it was that by 2008 I did not know the songs of those under forty well enough to sing them in groups informally in the Baha’i community or in any other communities of which I was a part as a teacher in primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions, as an adult educator, as a quasi-entertainer or one of a number of other roles I have had during those years.

These resources here in these booklets, these files, this collection, are here for singalongs in the groups I am involved with as I head through the middle years, 65 to 75, of late adulthood(60 to 80), and the last years of that stage(75 to 80) and finally, old age(80++), if I last that long. I have multiple copies of what I have come to call the music of other interest groups--for those not familiar with the Baha’i musical experience, booklets of songs I put together for students in classrooms where I used to teach as well as other groups. I have many editions of song books in multiple copy form that I made for Baha’i groups, as I say, as far back as the late 1980s. Songbooks from the previous two decades, the years 1972 to 1992, and the two decades before that, 1952 to 1972, have all been lost, thrown away or disappeared into the sands of time, the time that has been my life, as it has slipped irretrievably from my grasp.

These musical experiences called singalongs have returned to my life now here in George Town in the last four years. In July 2008 I put together a package/booklet of 75 songs as requested by the local aged care centre. Who knows when and who knows where and how these singalongs will develop in these years of late adulthood. My wife and son became a little tired of hearing the same old stuff back in the 1980s and 1990s for I am not a particularly talented guitarist and it is understandable that they have got tired of hearing all these old songs, this repertoire of mine. Singing in groups seemed to become passé, perhaps even to become seen as déclassé or lower in social status/standing in the wider society or at least many sectors of the wider society that I came to live and have my being in by the 1990s and 2000s.

Part 4:

This form of self-entertainment and group entertainment that does not rely on the electronic media, though, is far from dead, and I feel it will be part of my life in these years before my demise, my passing from this mortal coil. In some ways it has been fitting that most of the singalongs I have been part of in the last few years, 2008 to 2012, have involved residents of a home for those in aged care, for people on their last legs. I often thought that American writer William Faulkner's spirit may have been present in those sing alongs. I often thought, too, as I led these old folks in song that the spirit Faulkner had when he wrote his now famous book "As I Lay Dying" may just be at the back of the leisure-social-room where we had our singalongs; perhaps this great writer, this winner of a Nobel prize in literature, hangs around the ceiling or occupied another place in these rooms and outside which the poet-historian Arnold Toynbee says peopled our lives, these unseen, unknown, unobserved souls, millions upon billions of souls at just one remove, one step, beyond our senses in a land of lights never to return to this earth, its beauties and its ugliness’s, its bitter-sweetness’s and its joys.

These people who now singalong once each month all lay, sat up or palely loitered about, dying slowly. Each month that I went back to this old folks home during these latter years of these singalongs someone else had died, sometimes two or three had died or had moved to the very edge of their final hour. There were, as well, new residents, some as young as 60 or even their late 50s. Some sat in some state of increased decrepitude to that state I had observed in my previous visit and some looked brighter and more alert. Sometimes I was brighter and more alert. The term ‘old folks home’ was what we used to call these places for the old and dying when I was a kid. And of course it was just that, a home, their last. It was their home, their last home on this earthly plane.

Slowly I got to know many of the names of these souls, got to know their life stories, their particular ailments in great detail—as old people are want to tell you to the nth degree of finitude. I also got to know a little of their philosophies and their religious proclivities.

Part 5:

The resources in my personally prepared, tenderly fostered, oft-used-and-repeated booklets of singing material that are here in my files, my collections are getting a new lease on life. They had often been kept, in this last decade, tightly sealed with a big rubber-band around them, in keeping for a future time when singalongs would once again return to my life and to the groups I was involved with in these years of my late adulthood and what would become, finally, old age. Now the rubber bands are off the its action-stations for singalongs once again. It must be said, though, that by 2010, the resources for aged-care facilities were far from adequate and, as I write this latest edition of this statement on the last day of October 2012, I have not actually led a sing-along in this aged-care facility for the last 18 months.

Old age begins, say some human development psychologists, at the age of 80. I've come to like that model since the 1990s when I was a teacher of a course on human development. This model gives me now as it has given me in the last decade many more years before the onset of old age. As things stand now in 2012, I have another 12 years before I'm actually, officially, or shall I say psychologically, in theory at least, de facto, old. And I have plenty of years left for singalongs. Perhaps they may still be in my life in the 2040s, the decade when I become a centenarian. We shall see what those mysterious dispensations of a Watchful Providence provide in this the evening of my life as nightfall gradually approaches and “I go into a hole for those who speak no more,” as the Báb, the John the Baptist of the Baha’i Faith, once wrote it graphically and literally in His voluminous writings back in the 1840s.

Ron Price
31 October 2012
2000 Words
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[SteveO]

wow you have a lot of enthusiasm for MD ...18 posts already Nick ! What music do you like ? and welcome aboard MD !

I've played for years, but just joined the forum today! Hello all!

[ronPrice]

Here is a short list, SteveO.-Ron
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[h=1]LIST OF FAVORITE MUSIC [/h][h=1]AND [/h][h=1]INDEX TO MY COLLECTION OF RECORDS[/h]
PREAMBLE:

The exercise of listing one’s favorite music is no easy task after the passing of some seven decades. If a person is young, say in their childhood or adolescence the task is not as great. It may be better for such young people to wait for some years before making such a list, waiting until they survive the perils of: (a) their sporting interests, (b) their love life, © their job life, (d) their other leisure pursuits, (e) their desires and passions, wants and wishes as well as (e) the many slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that inevitably come into life.

In my lifetime there has come to be a world of sound in which I can drown, happily or not-so-happily as the case may be. The lists below contain some of the happier sources, pieces, items, songs, inter alia that give me pleasure now and at various times in my 69 years of life, 1943-2012.
_____________________
In the three year period June 2002 to May 2005, I compiled periodically a list of my favourite music. It was an attempt to define, to give expression to, to list what had become by then a vast sea of pleasurable sounds produced in a number of genres of music. My first memories of listening to music were in about 1948, although I was exposed to music right from the word go in 1943 by two parents who played the piano. I would post the full list here, but it is too long. I would post here "a short list" of nearly 70 years of musical experience, musical pieces I have enjoyed from a longer list of music that gave me pleasure, but it is, as I say, too long to include.

It is just a start to making a comprehensive list, a brief survey, a dip in the sea, so to speak. There are now over 1000 items in this full and comprehensive list that I put together in the years 2005 to 2012. I added to that initial list from time to time in the next six years and it came to well over 1000 items. If I continue to add to this list systematically and regularly the list will become completely unmanageable and necessitate far too much of a focus on music in my otherwise highly interdisciplinary life. But the names of many of my favourites are found below for my interest and occasionally to post at a website when others ask about my musical tastes. Since it seems impossible for me to remember the names of many of the pieces, this list helps assist me in bringing to memory these names when and if required. The exercise is interesting to me in its own right without any particular practical value.

Most of the items listed below are in my personal music collection(LPs, 45s, CDs and cassettes) or they are items that I have access to temporarily on the radio, or any time I chose from the vast list now available on the internet.

As I began adding every item to this list from what I heard on ABC FM Radio in and after 2002, and on the internet, it became obvious that, in the end, the list would become too long if I took the exercise seriously with any sense, as I say, of making a comprehensive collection. What is found here serves as: (a) a list of musical pieces I own/have access to in my collection and (b) a list of additional material I would like to have access to in my study, but do not. As I say, this is a list of musical favourites that I will never bring to an end. The sea is just too full. -Ron Price, Pioneering Over Four Epochs, Last Updated on: 19 June 2011.

CATEGORIES OF MUSIC:

A.1 CLASSICAL:

1.1 Bach: Symphony No.2 E-minor
1.2 Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No.1 in F; 12.2 No.6 in Bflat Major; No3, 4
1.3 Bach: Goldberg Variations
1.4 Bach: Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring
1.5 Bach: see my 20 record collection of Bach--too many to list here
2.1 Beethoven: Sonata #8 opus 13 and Violin Concerto in D, Opus 61
2.2 Beethoven: Symphonies: set 1-9, especially no.#5
2.3 Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Opus 57(Appassionata)
2.4 Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 24 in F# major, Opus 78
2.5 Beethoven: Pathétique Sonata, Piano Sonata No.8 in C minor Op.13
2.6 Beethoven: Moonlight Sonata, Piano Sonata No.14 in C-sharp minor Op.27/2.
2.7 Beethoven: Piano Concerto #5(Emperor)
2.8 Beethoven: Fur Elise(Bagatelle No.25 in A minor, G.173
2.9 Beethoven: Leonore Overture No.3, Opus 72 and 72a
2.10 Beethoven: Waldstein Sonata, Piano Sonata No.21 in C major Op.53
2.11 Beethoven: Piano Trio #7 in B Flat Opus 97(The Archduke)
2.12 Beethoven: too many other pieces of Beethoven’s to list due to prolixity
3. Berlioz: Symphony Fantastique
4.1 Johannes Brahms, Symphony No.1 in C-Minor
4.2 Brahms, Piano Concerto # 1 in D Minor, Opus # 15
5.1 Frederick Chopin: Scherzo 1,2,3 and 4 ; 11.2 Ballads 1 to 4
5.2 Chopin: Fantasy Impromptu in C sharp minor, Opus 66
5.3 Chopin, 24 Preludes(C#minor,A-Flat-Major)
5.4 Chopin, Waltz No.7 in C Sharp minor, Opus 64/2
5.5 Chopin, Study No.3 in E major Opus 10 Tristesse
5.6 Chopin: Polonaise in A Flat, Op. 53 "Heroic"
5.7 Chopin: Nocturne No. 2 in E flat, Op. 9 No. 2
5.8 Chopin: Etude Op.10 No. 3 in E
5.9 Chopin: to list all of Chopin’s music that I enjoy would lead to prolixity
6.1 Claude Debussy: Claire de Lune from the Suite Bergamasque
6.2 Debussy: Preludes, “Girl With the Flaxen Hair” among other preludes
7.1 Anton Dvorak: New World Symphony
7.2 Dvorak: Symphony #3

1. Dvorak: Cello Concerto in B Minor, op.104
   
2. Dvorak: Symphonic Variations, Opus 78
   

8. Edvard Grieg, Peer Gynt, Suite No.1

1. Frederick Handel, Water Music Suite
   
2. Gabriel Faure, The Pavane in F-sharp minor, opus 50
   

11. Franz Joseph Hayden: Concerto in D. Major
12. Franz Liszt: Concerto No.1 in E Flat Major
12.1 Liszt: Liebestraum No. 3 in A-flat, S 541 / III.
12.2 Liszt: Consolation, for piano No. 3 in D-flat Major
[h=1]12.3 Liszt: La Campanella[/h]12.4 Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody #2 in C-Sharp Minor

13. Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (pronounced Goretsky), Symphony #3.
14. Jules Massinet: Meditations
15. Felix Mendelssohn, Symphony #4 in A(Italian), Opus 90
16.1 Amadeus Mozart: Sonatas for Piano
16.2 Mozart: Divertimenti for strings, Adagio & Fugue in C Minor
16.3 Mozart: Piano Concerto #20 in D minor, K466
16.4 Mozart: Piano Concertos: other
16.5 Mozart: Symphony #40 in C minor
16.6 Mozart: too many other pieces of Mozart to list due to prolixity
17. Giacomo Puccini:One Fine Day, Madame Butterfly
18. Nicoli Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade
19.1 Sergei Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
19.2 Rachmaninoff: Prelude in G Minor, Opus 23, No.5
19.3 Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No.2 D Minor
19.4 Rachmaninoff: Prelude in C sharp Minor Op.3 No.2
19.5 Rachmaninoff: too many other pieces of Rachmaninov to list due to prolixity
20.1 Joaquin Rodrigo: Ecos de Sefarad-guitar
20.2 Joaquin Rodrigo: need to familiarize myself with his repertoir
21. Erik Satie: Gymnopedie No.1
22.1 Franz Schubert: Fantasie in F. Minor, D 940
22.2 Schubert: Ave Maria, Symphony #8 in B-minor
22.3 Schubert: Octet Quintet in F major(For 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass, clarinet, horn and bassoon)
22.4 Schubert: Impromptu No.3 in G flat major D.899/Op.90
22.5 Schubert: Impromptu No.7 in E flat major opus 6
22.6 Schubert: Impromptu No.7 in E-flat major opus 90 no.2
22.7 Schubert: String Quartet #14: Death of a Maiden, D 810
22.8 Schubert: String Quintet in C.
22.9 Schubert: Piano Trios in E Flat Major, D 929 and 897
22.10 Schubert: Piano Quintet In A major: 'Trout' D667
22.11 Schubert: Impromptu in A Flat Major. Op. 90, No. 4
23.1 Robert Schumann: Concerto in A-Minor
23.2 Schumann: Symphonies 1-4
23.3 Schumann: Etudes
23.4 Schumann: Romance Violin
[h=1]23.5 Schumann: Fairy Tales for Viola and Piano
[/h][h=1]23.6 Schumann: violin concerto op 134 d minor
[/h][h=1]23.7 Schumann: Mondnacht
[/h][h=1]23.8 Schumann: Traumerie[/h]
24.1 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.6 in B Minor
24.2 Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto D Major
24.3 Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio in A Minor, Opus 50
25. Antonio Vivaldi: Violin Concerti #3; trumpet concerti for 4 violins

[h=2]Circa: 80 pieces of classical music are found above[/h]
A.2 CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL

1. Elgar: Cello Concerto, 1st Movement, J. du Pre
   
2. Eric Satie, Gymnopedies
   

B. FOLK/POPULAR:

B.1 Baha'i CDs:

There were over 50 CDs in the Launceston Baha’i community files by 2005. I played them for several years as “presenter of programs” on City Park Radio. I have none of these in my personal collection. I have listed elsewhere these 50 CDs. These 50 CDS had many individual songs that I came to enjoy and could list them as favourites. I have listed a few of them below.

1. Parrish and Toppano, The Shores of This Great Ocean(Call Out to Zion)
   
2. Parrish and Toppano, Royal Falcon & The Girl That I Never Knew
   
3. Hummingbird, Dash Crofts
   
4. Advance Guards, Dash Crofts
   
5. One Planet One People, Dash Crofts
   
6. Windflower, Dan Seals and Dash Crofts
   
7. We May Never Pass This Way Again, Crofts
   
8. Hollow Reed, Crofts
   
9. One Planet One People, Crofts
   
10. East of Ginger Trees, Seals and Crofts
    
11. Angela Wood, Gentle Warrior
    
12. Year of Sunday, Seals and Crofts
    
13. Grant Hinden Miller, several CDs
    
14. Radio Nur 2002-extensive output by 2005
    
15. The Voices of Baha: Live At Carnegie Hall
    
16. Many new CDs are produced annually--too many to list here
    

B.2 Non-Baha'i CDs/LPs/Cassette Tapes©:

1. Working Class Man, Bruce Springsteen
   
2. Born In The USA©, Bruce Springsteen
   
3. Angel Clare(LP) Art Garfunkel
   
4. Astral Weeks(LP)Van Morrison
   
5. Songs for Beginners, (LP)Graham Nash
   
6. Leave Love Enough Alone, (LP) Doug Ashdown
   
7. Moody Blues, (LP) On the Threshold of a Dream
   
8. Moody Blues, (LP) Seventh Sojourn
   
9. Joni Mitchell, (LP) The World Of Joni Mitchell
   
10. James Taylor,(LP) Sweet Baby James
    
11. Bob Dylan, Lay Lady Lay, All Along the Watchtower, A Hard Rain's, If Not for You and more-too many to list here.
    
12. Tom Rush, (LP) Merrimack County
    
13. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, 3LPs-4 Way Street, Celebration Copy, Déjà vu
    
14. Michael Murphy, (LP) Blue Sky Night Thunder
    
15. Cat Stevens, (LPs) Tea for the Tillerman, Teaser and the Firecat.
    
16. Yesterday When I Was Young, Lena Horne
    
17. The Impossible Dream, Several Artists
    
18. Non-Baha’i-non-classical CDS--too many to list here.
    
19. That Was Then This Is Now, Michael Stocks(CD)
    
20. Bob Seeger, Greatest Hits(CD)
    
21. Gordon Lightfoot: If you could read my mind and Summer Side of Life: too many songs to list here.
    
22. Andrew Wells, Journeys(CD)
    
23. Angela Armstrong© Personal Compilation
    
24. Leonard Cohen, Suzanne and too many other songs to list here.
    

B.3 FROM MY SONG BOOKS(NOT-IN-RECORD COLLECTION):

1. We are the World
   
2. Cats in the Cradle
   
3. Fire and Rain, James Taylor
   
4. Paul Simon, Kathy's Song--too many others to list here.
   
5. Gordon Lightfoot, Go My Way
   
6. -Mother of a Miner's Child--too many others to list here.
   
7. Mull of Kintyre
   
8. The Streets of London
   
9. As Different As We Are, John Denver
   
10. Rocky Mountain High, John Denver
    
11. Many more could be added from my songbook from the 40 years when I played the guitar for singalongs and to entertain: 1968-2008.
    

C. BACKGROUND MUSIC FOR READING/WRITINGCDs/LPs)

1. Frans Brugger, Blockflotin, Vol.2
   
2. Sammartini, Symphony in A. Major
   
3. Some of the music in sections A and B is good background music.
   
4. Lucky Oceans plays hundreds of pieces over the months/years on his ABC Radio National Programs. I could include much of that music here.
   

D. 1 LITURGICAL/CHOIR

D.1:

1. Faure, Blockflotin, Vol.2
2. Mahler, Symphonies No. 4/5
3. Some of the above in sections A and B

D.2:

1. Puccini, Turandot.

E. JAZZ

1. Phil Morrison Trio, Sea Island Blues, 12 Tracks(T)
   

2. Jeff Jones, Live in Concert, 14T
3. Tenor/Saxaphone songs(2??) from Porgy and Bess
4. Many ‘jazz’ pieces from radio programs which I could and will include here at a future time.

F. OTHER:

F.1

1. Lucky Oceans plays a great deal of material on ABC Radio National in his afternoon program from many musical genres. Some of the material he plays could be added here and will, when time permits, at a future time. At this stage there seems to be just too much to add to this list and too many other things for me to do to make this list comprehensive.

2. Other musical programs on ABC Radio bring in “other” music that I have begun to add here, but can not do so in any comprehensive sense due to prolixity.
3. Friends also introduce me to CDs from time to time and some of this material may be added here in future. Again, the collections of others is just too extensive to make any attempt to list here.

F.2

1. The Lord's Prayer, Mahelia Jackson
2. Other: to be done at a later date

F.3:

1.Talks on Cassette-Ten collections of material to be indexed later.
2. Talks: (a) on internet-written and (b) on internet-spoken

Ron Price: Last Updated On: 21 June 2011
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INDEX TO COLLECTION OF RECORDS

Preamble:

After having music in my life for 65 years(1943-2008) and after collecting records for 40 years(1965-2005), the time finally arrived to index the collection I had acquired. By 2005 music in the form of CDs, at least for me, were replacing LPs as a source of new recorded music. A separate collection of some 15 CDs is now found in the chest of drawers near the radio in the dining room. Cassette tapes had begun to be a source of music already by the 1960s and I now have some 30 cassette tapes found in that same place in the dining-room. This index, this list here, does not include these CDs and the cassette tapes or, indeed, the 3 mini-discs acquired when I was a presenter of programs at City Park Radio from 2001-2004. At a future time I hope to index the CDs and the cassette tapes. Much of the material on the CDs, the cassette tapes and the mini-discs is not music, but other types of recorded resources: talks, radio programs, et cetera.

There are three sections for the records in this collection found in my study: (A) popular, (B) classical and © 45s. They are all kept in my study beside a small inexpensive($40 in 2008) Jensen turntable radio/phonograph at 6 Reece Street in George Town Tasmania. The index for this collection is alphabetical by: author/composer/writer/singer/artist. In the popular section the first name of the author/singer is often used for the base of the indexed item; for example, “Joan” in Joan Baez;. In the classical section the index is entirely based on the last name.—Ron Price, 1 September, 2008.

1. POPULAR:
   

1. Bee Gees(2)
   
2. Bob Dylan
   
3. Cat Stevens(3)
   
4. Carly Simon
   
5. Cleo Laine
   
6. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young(4)
   
7. Don McLean
   
8. Doug Ashdown
   
9. Edward Woodward(3)
   
10. 1844(Eighteen-Forty-Four)
    
11. Focus
    
12. Elton John(2)
    
13. Gershwin
    
14. Helen Ready(2)
    
15. Herb Alpert
    
16. Hits(Collections-2)
    
17. Ian Paulin
    
18. James Taylor(2)
    
19. John Denver
    
20. Joan Baez
    
21. Joni Mitchell
    
22. Melanie
    
23. Michael Murphy
    
24. Nash, Graham
    
25. Moody Blues(4)
    
26. Neil Diamond
    
27. Neil Young(2)
    
28. Pentangling
    
29. Peter, Paul and Mary
    
30. Seals and Crofts(3)
    
31. Simon & Garfunkel(2)
    

Simon(2)
Garfunkel(2)

1. Tom Rush
   
2. Stephen Foster
   
3. Summer of 42(Movie Sound-Track)
   
4. Van Morrison
   

1. CLASSICAL:
   

1. Collections: Great Composers-12 records
   

-Piano-1

1. Collections: 4 & singles-Bach-21 records total
   
2. Beethoven-12
   
3. Bruggen
   
4. Berlioz
   
5. Chopin
   
6. Dvorak
   
7. Elgar
   
8. Faure
   
9. Handel(5)
   
10. Haydn(2)
    
11. Liszt
    
12. Mahler
    
13. Mendelssohn
    
14. Mozart(9)
    
15. Samartini
    
16. Schubert
    
17. Schumann
    
18. Sibelius
    
19. Strauss(2)
    
20. Tchaikovsky(2)
    
21. Vivaldi(3)
    

1. 45s:
   

1. Abba
   
2. Beatles
   
3. Cover
   
4. Creedence Clearwater Revival
   
5. Elton John(2)
   
6. Joan Baez
   
7. Judy Collins
   
8. Seals & Crofts -Last Indexed on: 1 September 2008
   
9. ---------------------------------------------
   

[SteveO]

^ Great to hear from you again, Ron ! What a fabulous read and such a detailed list of music !

[ronPrice]

Thanks, SteveO, for your positive reaction. It took me some time to compose the list and it feels good to be able to make use of it occasionally.-Ron

[SteveO]

I admire your posts...detailed and interesting !!!! Can you come around more often, Ron ?

Thanks, SteveO, for your positive reaction. It took me some time to compose the list and it feels good to be able to make use of it occasionally.-Ron

[ronPrice]

Thanks for your encouragement, SteveO. I've been working at my website. It's section on music is found at: http://www.ronpriceepoch.com/Music.html

[Gibsom Street]

I started on guitar age 7 and was classically trained by my father. I was also learning songs by The Beatles, The Kinks, and The Rolling Stones. By age 12 my father began teaching me a Jazz style where I learned arrangements by Johnny Smith and George Barnes. Age 15, I was learning George Benson, John McLaughlin, and later Pat Metheny. I also went through a period when I studied the Classical guitar 12 and 15 hrs. a day. I gave it up and went on the road in 77' performing with "Glam Rock" bands. David Bowie had left the Glitter Rock scene behind to explore his Berlin period, but on the East coast of the U.S. that scene was still going strong. The Heartbreakers, The Dead End Kids, and many others traveled that road. Some of it was very corporate.

I then entered the dying Progressive Rock scene in the late 70's , traveling endlessly performing the music of Jethro Tull, Genesis, and Rush and also recording in several recording studios with original Prog bands that basically went nowhere at a time when it was a struggle to continue the mission itself. Happy The Man and Nektar were on the circuit packing small clubs and theaters, yet promoters refused to invest in these bands because they wanted to change the music scene from Prog to the 3 or 4 minute song. The 3 or 4 minute song had existed already, but they wanted to cover most areas of music with that concept and leave the cult followings to research progressive music on their own.


I then worked for celebrity entertainers on the theater circuit. I was about 22 years old and didn't know WHO I was. I was too young to understand myself and thrown into a corporation backing that was quite overwhelming for me at that age. I didn't understand sexual promiscuity and couldn't relate to it being that vast! I was a misfit riding on a bus ..up and down the East coast of the U.S. . listening to the music and lyrics of Chi Coltrane. I did not personally know her, but used to think that I was in love with her. All her lyrics were about the things I had experienced in my life and I wanted to meet a girl that felt the same as me, so I would ride the bus from state to state and stare at her picture as I listened to her music on cassette. Her songs gave me advice and kept me alive. I lost some of my best friends on the road ...as they committed suicide with overdoses of pills. I couldn't relate to girls chasing me to the bus or limo , tackling me to the ground and ripping my shirt off and bodyguards pulling them away. I didn't understand any of that stuff and I was a shy kid, very much in the dark with my secret Chi Coltrane cassette tape.

I was opening for Doc Severson Band, Ian Hunter, Dixie Dregs, Rossington/Collins Band, Jerry Vale ..while the acts I didn't open for were booked behind us or ahead on a tightly knitted schedule. Acts like Steve Hackett, Renaissance, Johnny Winter, and Badfinger. This was during the early 80's when Progressive Rock bands were still hanging by a thread , (so to speak), and it was a brief and very sad time period to witness bands like this falling by the wayside. I would stand on stage playing and noticing Tom Evans several times in the audience, wanting to speak to him, but was escorted quickly away by bodyguards who wouldn't allow us to mingle with anyone. Tom Evans committed suicide a few years later when I was playing a much lower scale circuit. I was clearing a thousand dollars a week in the early 80's and I was depressed over the fact that I listened to Badfinger age 13 and now I was 22/23 performing in front of one of it's founding members. That depressed me for some reason? Many virtually unknown musicians have opened up for acts like these, but in 81' it was more of a huge deal because these particular acts had JUST been dropped down to a lower scale and everybody on the planet knew who they were.

I used to travel in snow storms, staring out the window of the bus at a father and his children digging themselves out of a driveway and hoping that one day, I would have a more normal life or have a life at all. I listened to Chi Coltrane and she helped me to survive this depression. I had many gifts stowed upon me that I did not deserve. Guitars, a car, clothes, money and I was overwhelmed and totally confused. I was constantly provided with everything I ever needed. All I had to do was be a good little boy, keep my mouth shut and play the guitar. I traveled the road close to 30 years and worked with musicians/entertainers who were 10 or 12 years older than me. They were like family and taught me the ropes of the music business. They ONLY accepted a punk kid like me because I had been classically trained and was ahead of the game regarding diversity on the guitar.

I began to compose music in front of lighthouses or on beaches when I traveled, instead of hanging in Holiday Inns. I eventually released "Lighthouse Summer" which was an instrumental album that received reviews in Progression magazine and sold well in Hungary. I was interviewed by a "Rock Journalist" and placed on some celebrity website, although I had only worked with celebrities and never gained any real fame or fortune. In the past..I have been threatened by managers who wanted to sue me if I posted films of myself performing with certain artists on stage. Some were filmed by television camera crews and are stored away in vaults. My children will never see those films..unfortunately. I am 57 years old and perform between 4 to 5 days a week every year. I make decent money and have fun. I sometimes play in the larger cities, but the entire affair is based on a lower scale of clubs, casinos, and bars.


For a few years..I had to seek therapy because I actually thought that the entire world was just like the social environment of the music business. I was not able to function in the real world because of the criminal activity I witnessed on the road. I don't know what other's have experience on this website, but I do know that what I experienced had to do with politics, pay-offs, sexual promiscuity in the numbers, drug hand outs from the corporate levels, and suicides. It took me years to get over it and now I'm finally okay with myself and the world around me..except for one thing only...and that is..being able to give Chi Coltrane a big hug and thank her for saving me with her music.

[SteveO]

Thank you Gibsom for the great introspective and revealing story! I admire your honesty and the willingness to share!