MP3 Full Circle - JAZZ: Free Jazz

Relaxing, acoustic fingerstyle guitar with great melodies

12 MP3 Songs
JAZZ: Free Jazz, EASY LISTENING: Love Songs



Details:
BIO:
From the moment I first picked up a guitar I was hooked. The first guitar I ever held was my best friendâs cheap acoustic that his parents had given him - I stayed up all night trying to play it. I knew then I had to have my own guitar and learn to play it. That was my soul talking â I didnât come from a real musical family, although my folks did like big bands, Sinatra and some classical which they listened to on the record player.

I was about 13 years old and living in a dysfunctional family in a small East Texas oilfield town. There was one little music store, Keounâs Music, that mainly sold pianos, band instruments and a few crappy Lindale guitars. I donât have any idea what happened to that brand. So my first guitar was little $35 Lindale acoustic that sort of tuned up. Although this was the mid-sixties, I was a âteenagerâ and like a lot of young guys today, I wanted to play rock nâ roll. I finally pestered my mother enough that to shut me up, she gave me $55 for a truly awful Lindale electric and a tiny 5-watt amp that barely even had what you could call a speaker. The strings on that guitar were at least 1/2-inch off the fret board and it never would really tune up.

Guitars like that one are basically designed to either make you frustrated and quit or make more determined and try even harder. I played that thing until my fingers literally blistered and bled, and then I played it some more. About that time my Dad finally realized what I was up to, and since he was sure that by learning to play guitar put me squarely on the road to destruction, he wanted to stop me before things goy any worse. I could make a few chord changes by then and tried to play them for him. His words of encouragement were âYouâll never learn to play that damn thing!â He never really listened to me again â oh he âheardâ me well enough to tell me to âturn it downâ or âdonât play while Iâm aroundâ â but that was about it.

One afternoon I was over at a friendâs house, we were playing guitars and Jimmy was banging out an E chord and somehow I stumbled upon the riff of Ray Charlesâ âWhatâd I Sayâ and it âfit.â What a realization for us â thatâs how âbandsâ do it! Right there and then we decided to form our own rock nâ roll band â the first ever in Gladewater, Texas. So âThe Chessmenâ were born and before long we were pretty popular around East Texas. We stayed together and played regularly for the rest of my high school years.

When we first started the Chessmen, we played a lot of simple 3 and 4 chord rock songs that were popular at the time. I started learning some tunes by the Ventures and taught them to the band. After that weâd start mixing in a few instrumentals like âWalk Donât Runâ and âApacheâ in our sets. Jimmy Bowden, our rhythm guitar player, had an older cousin nearby up in Gilmer, Texas who also played guitar in a group playing around East Texas. They were older guys and could play in the local clubs and honky tonks that we were too young to play in. So they were âcool.â One afternoon I was at Jimmyâs cousinâs playing guitars and he put some Freddy King playing his instrumentals on the record player â this was before stereo. Iâd never heard any thing like that before â it moved my soul and I had to learn to play it. So I went from the Ventures to Freddy King then B.B. King and Albert King with some Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed and Albert Collins mixed in.

Although I loved the Ventures and the blues, for some reason I also liked some of the old standards like âMistyâ and âFly Me to the Moon.â I loved the melodies and I wanted to be able to play these pretty standards by myself and sound complete. At the time I was playing lead, but I really liked chords too. I didnât really know anything about âfingerpicking.â So learning to play some of these old standards using chords was really exciting.

About this time I was working part time after school in a music store in the nearby bigger town of Pine Tree, Texas. There were a couple of older guys also working there who were really good pickers. One of them got to be sort of famous in Texas â âBugâ (Buddy) Henderson. I think he survived his demons too and still plays around Texas. The two guys would be walking around the store trying out all the guitars and playing blues licks and fingerpicking this other stuff where they had the bass going with their thumbs and the chords and melody with the fingers â stuff like âFreight Trainâ and maybe âWindy and Warm.â I was fascinated asked them where did they get that stuff - Chet Atkins, of course. Chet immediately became another mentor which through him and my love of melodies led me to guys like Howard Roberts, Barney Kessel and Wes Montgomery. I picked out some of Chetâs stuff off the records, but I was really disciplined enough to really learn it like Tommy Emmanuel, Doyle Dykes, Richard Anderson and Wesley Crider (to name some of the very best) have. Those guys can really carry the torch for Chet.

I guess I should tell at least one Chessmen story. Well like I said it was the 60âs and there werenât many rock nâ roll bands around East Texas at the time. So I guess at the time, we seemed pretty to cool to some of the girls around there. We were playing pretty regular on the weekends at several different towns in the area and had our local âfansâ in each town. Well it got to the point where Jimmy and I had girlfriends in two or three of the towns. One night after a dance in Mount Pleasant we took our Mount Pleasant girlfriends parking. Jimmy and his girlfriend were in the front seat and I was in the backseat with mine. It was really pretty innocent stuff at the time â we were just kissing and not even any âpetting.â We were parked way out in woods somewhere outside of Mount Pleasant with all the windows rolled up and something starts rocking Jimmyâs car. We all looked up and the car was surrounded by pissed off Mount Pleasant guys. I figured we were done for. But the next thing I see is Jimmyâs girl cracking the window or her side just enough to slide an engagement ring to some poor guy! That was it and we took them home and got out of there.

Of course there was also the time the chaperones shut one of dances down for singing the dirty words to âWine, Wine Wineâ â but thatâs another story. After high school the Chessmen split up, but I kept playing in bands around East Texas. I remember one of the bands I played in was all older guys but they needed me to play lead. The main players were the Beard brothers from Kilgore, Texas - one played a Hammond B-3 a la Jimmy Smith and the other one played bass and they played like one person. They had a gig at this honky tonk (I think the âStar Loungeâ) across the river outside of Gladewater. I was only 18 but somehow they got me in to play and no one ever said a word to me, asked for an I.D. or anything.

One night I was in the restroom between sets and an oilfield redneck came in and pulled a straight razor on me. He said you better play âHonky Tonkâ or Iâm going to use this on you. Naturally I told him to go to hell, yeah right, I told him I would be glad to play when we started back. The only problem was (and didnât tell him) was that I didnât know how to play âHonky Tonk.â Somehow I must have played something that sounded enough like "Honky Tonk" that I didn't have any more trouble out of that guy.

For next number of years I played in many different kinds of groups from country to "blue-eyed" soul. I also did a fair amount of studio work in Texas. I was always a better "fingerpicker" than flat picker and I used to play with a flat pick and two fingers. In 1979 I remarried and quit playing bars for good. I was sick of them by then â how many times can you play âBlue Eyes Crying in the Rainâ and âTonight the Bottle Let Me Down.â

Since then I never completely quit but it wasnât until about 6 or 7 years ago that I really got back into it and started fingerpicking. Nowadays I very seldom use a flat pick anymore. Iâve written songs since the old days and even played in one band, E.O. Doggett, where all we did was our original material. After a health battle and a fight with a monkey, the music has flooded through me. Thatâs how I feel about â Iâm just blessed enough to be a conduit â thatâs what I really mean when I talk about all the tunes Iâve written.

CD NOTES:

Thanks to God for the gift of music. Without it I doubt Iâd even be here today. And thanks for chance to share these tunes with everybody. It only took me about 40 years to get this first one done â the next one wonât take as long. How lucky I am to have been exposed to so many wonderful musicians over the years â from my early mentors - especially Chet, all the Kings and Nokie Edwards - to guys like Tommy Emmanuel who reminded me about the importance of a good melody and Doyle Dykes for being such an inspiration and showing me how a music âministryâ can take different forms and reach people everywhere. Also, Iâve got to thank Sonny Thomas (a great âsecretâ picker in his own right) for helping me believe in myself.

I must thank my Dad too, bless his soul, for telling me âyouâll never learn to play that damn guitarâ â cause it sure got me determined to learn. Thanks to all my friends and family â especially Danny & Amanda, Don & Carole, my sis Faith, Tom B. and Wesley Crider for all their love and encouragement. And thanks to Kathy Tallent for keeping me in fingerpicks!

My most special thanks to my wife Lynn, without whose love, patience and support this project would never have happened.

Enjoy and God Bless

Lee âLeboâ Starnes 2006

All songs written and performed by Lee Starnes with the exception of Amazing People (medley of Amazing Grace and People Get Ready â used by permission). All the songs were played using fingerstyle to play all parts at the same time without overdubs. The only overdub was the bit of lead at the end of "Tunnels of New York."