MP3 Slim Pickings - FOLK: Fingerstyle

Finger-picking 6 strings of steel and nylon, Tony Green, a Chicago-based Scotsman, plays a selection of favorite instrumental guitar pieces, finally doing something about those pesky tunes stuck in his head for 10-odd years.

10 MP3 Songs
FOLK: Fingerstyle



Details:
Tony Green has a radio station in his head

Tony Green, may be the greatest guitarist youâve never heard of. Mainly because learning guitar at 13, and playing in various basement and garage bands, I never played an actual gig. So you wouldnât know, would you? Itâs ok, how could you? Never played out. Practiced for years. Never left the bedroom. Not in a WWII-Japanese-soldier-left-in-the-woods-unaware-the war-is-over kind of way, just in a never-quite-got-up-the-nerve-and-was-too-scared-of-being-embarassed kind of way. Loved the guitar. Classical, rock, jazz â didnât matter. The guitar was MY instrument. I studied everything. Played everything I could. Took up all my time. (Actually, some of this time was spent practicing not real guitar, but air guitar, to the point that a nosy neighbor across the street, who could see my shadowy kneeling-below-the-stack-of-Marshalls activities through the bedroom window, once called my parents to let them know that I was having an epileptic fit.)

But I still never played out and then I stopped playing guitar. So as good as I thought I was, no-one else ever knew.

Went to university. Got a degree. Got a job. Moved to America from Scotland. Got married. Had kids, Went to Grad School. Got a bigger job. Got divorced. Fifteen years of grown-up life slipped by as easily as those twenty-five words.

Then I started playing guitar again.

That last part sounds quite dramatic, doesnât it? But to be fair, I also broke out my old train and slot car racing sets, started wearing my Boy Scout uniform and re-read all my Paddington Bear books.

Right about then I saw Lou Reed interviewed on TV saying âthereâs a radio station in my head â and Iâm always listeningâ Turning to my girlfriend I said â I know exactly what heâs talking about! You know when you hear a song for the first time on the radio and it starts out really well, then it takes a turn and itâs NOT quite so good anymore, but in YOUR head you can hear exactly how you think it SHOULD sound?â She stared back at me and said blankly âNo. I donât. In fact, I think there are very few people that can do thatâ

Once I got over the idea that maybe I had been doing everything wrong for 40 years, I decided: It was time to take this music âthingâ more seriously.

Turning forty, I decided to record a CD of songs. Instrumentals, mainly, that I loved and had loved for years. With this first âSlim Pickingsâ CD, Iâm just getting started. My plan is to release one CD (or whatever medium will be used in the future â probably some form of iTunes-controlled audio telepathy) of music â whatever Iâm hearing in my head - every year.

Les Paul is still playing in NYC at 91 years old (You really need to get out there to see him, by the way.) Chet Atkins once introduced himself by saying âIf it werenât for the guitar, Iâd be out running wild, practicing law or medicine someplaceâ . They're onto something. I figure I have a few decades left to keep playing music; to do what Iâm supposed to do.

As I enter the second half of my life, Iâve found what I truly want to do. Making and playing music. Playing guitar. Sharing what I hear in my head. I wish I could be more sophisticated and revelatory about it, but it really is that simple (and hokey.) I do regret the fact that I never got to thrash around onstage as a kid. The music Iâll be playing for the rest of my life probably wonât lend itself to that style, but you never know. Hell, if someone puts on Queenâs âThe Prophetâs Songâ, you will SWEAR on Led Zeppelinâs first four albums that Iâm having a seizure. Ah, heady days indeed.

Itâs time for me to pay attention to that radio station in my head. And you get to listen.