Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts after you've had a chance to give it a proper listen.
Did I PM you my and her soundcloud account? You can hear our totally different styles, she is post modern with synth (her first degree was in Synth sound design at Berklee and MA at Wesleyan in Conn.
I just came up with nothing but some GREAT teachers, the first was Howard Brubeck, Dave Brubeck's brother, at Palomar College in San Marcos Calif. The second was Blind Rev. Gary Davis, a guitar genius, the third was a night with Pete Seeger, he taught me his tune 'living in the country' and the fourth I spent the most time with, Backwards Sam Firk, AKA Mike Stewart, a country blues genius. RIP now. He had a 78 blues collection over 10,000 records he bought and sold, I think his son still has that business. But unlike most record buyer/sellers he learned the guitar licks on most of them, extremely well I might add.
I found him when we lived in Alexandria Virginia, in 'old town' near the river.
So I am wandering around and found to my surprise, not 4 blocks from my apartment on the same street, the Alexandria Folklore Center probably long gone now.
So one day I asked if they had room for a guitar teacher, they said, sure come in Saturday.
So I came in and asked about the teaching job. They said, sorry, we got Firk. ? Firk?
Yeah, you never heard of Backwards Sam Firk? No.
Well you are in for a treat: he is in the third teaching booth down.
So I go down and introduced myself and asked him what he plays. So he starts in on his big Gibson J200 playing stuff that hasn't been played for 50 years by most blues dudes, my mouth dropped only about halfway down my chin and I immediately went from prospective teacher to avid student with him for about 3 years. He is frigging, well, was, amazing. His recording partner, Stephan Michaelson, AKA Delta X recorded with him on Adelphi records, Gene Rosenthal's label and Mike was married to Carol, Gene's sister. She was our blues den mother, a great woman, very gracious and loving. She died of a heart attack at about 29 years old, we were all devastated. It was a sad day when I heard of her death.
Then about 5 years ago, Mike was at breakfast with wife and kids and keeled over with a major heart attack himself and they rushed him to hospital but he died shortly after.
Stephan put out a CD of the two, Mama What you think this is.
What a great CD.
One of the things that totally impressed me about Firk was his record he gave me, the first one, which I played over and over again. It took me like 5 playings to even understand just how good he was. Anyway, I still do fingerpicking and mandolin and dulcimer compositions, now have over 30 originals on Soundcloud and 23 more traditional tunes and a half dozen songs of my wife Susan, onstage and in studio. If you want I will PM you the link and my daughter Heather also.
Here is a little blurb about Gene:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/bit.listserv.blues-l/DPqe0a7sC6o