Chapter 45: What was an unusual compliment you once received, but really appreciated?
Originally written October 25, 2021
About 40 years ago when I was playing my music every Sunday night at The Forge in Santa Fe, I was drinking one night with some friends at the Ore House. (Both these downtown bars, The Forge and The Ore House, have been gone for decades, so this is really making me feel old.)
I think this happened in the late summer of 1980, when my then-wife was pregnant with our daughter and she was visiting her parents in Alabama. But I very well might be wrong about that.
Our server was a guy I recognized as a Forge regular. I don’t remember his name, and it’s quite possible I didn’t even know it then. Short guy with short reddish brown hair and beard. We’d never actually talked much before then, except to say “hi.”
But that night, while bringing drinks to me and my friends, he wanted to talk about my music.
That itself usually is a compliment to a musician, (unless it’s an obnoxious jerk who you’re embarrassed to have as a friend or fan. Or a stalker …)
I think I probably made some self-deprecating remark (well-earned self-depreciation, to be sure) about my guitar abilities, as I’m apt to do.
Call it modesty or call it honesty.
The server responded with something that stuck with me:
“You’ve got one of the best right hands of any guitarist in town,” he said. “Unfortunately, you also have the worst left hand in town.”
Not only did I appreciate this guy’s honesty, but also his perception. I knew he was dead-on accurate about my abilities on guitar.
For those not familiar with guitar mechanics, most guitar players use their left hands to form chords and/or individual notes on the fretboard, while using their right hands to strum the chords to pick the correct string for individual notes.
Obviously this doesn’t apply to left-handed guitarists, so saying I had one of the best right hands in town could be considered an insult to any great left-handed guitarists.
But this is MY book and it’s all about me, so screw those left-handed guitarists!
The server was correct about my lack of ability in my left hand.
I’ve never been able to play leads worth a damn. And I’ve muffed many a chord change – even on easy 3-chord songs -- when performing in public, which I’ll also blame on that left hand.
So I’m basically a rhythm guitarist. But, as that server noted, my right hand was always pretty steady.
Country singer Paul Burch knew the score:
John Lennon knew as well.
When asked to evaluate his own guitar playing in a Rolling Stone interview, Lennon said, “I’m okay. I'm not very good technically, but I can make it fuckin' howl and move. I was rhythm guitarist. It's an important job. I can make a band drive.”
My rhythm-guitar hero always has been Richie Havens. I knew I was nowhere near his league, but Richie’s driving, dramatic strumming was what I aimed for.
Here’s Ritchie and his righteous right hand (and his not-too-shabby left hand) still going strong in 2002:
In recent years, thanks to tendonitis in my wrist and trigger finger in my hands I’ve had to give up guitar.
The entire music world mourned.
We built a huge funeral pyre into which the pallbearers — Keith Richards, Cheetah Chrome, King Sunny Ade, Bob Mould, Carlos Santana and Poison Ivy — threw my old Guild, my beloved instrument, which I bought in 1981 shortly before I recorded Picnic Time For Potatoheads.
It was hard restraining all those weeping women who wanted to throw themselves into the fiery remains of my old ax …
Sorry.
That didn’t really happen.
Actually I gave that guitar to my son a few years ago. (I wrote about this a few chapters ago.)
So my wild strumming days were over for good.
But for one shining moment in the early 1980s I had the best right hand in town.
And the worst left.
Let’s conclude with some excellent rhythm guitar from John Lennon and his Fab Combo.
You once opened for Michael Martin Murphy?🤯 RESPECT SEÑOR!👍🏼
Damn that awesome!