Earliest Musical Memories
When I was a little kid my family and I would walk up to the small church on the corner on Sunday nights. And sit on really hard wooden pews. And sometimes a huge bus would pull up and park in the church driveway. Then a singing group would come out of the bus and give a concert. And I would like that a lot, especially if the music was lively.
And my Dad would buy their records or 8-tracks and play them on Saturday afternoons. My favorite group that pulled up to our church in a bus was the Stamps Quartet because they had cool guitar playing on some of their albums by the insanely good James "Duke" Dumas, who could play like Les Paul.
And a guy named JD Sumner who could sing extremely low notes. On one live album he was singing low notes, going lower and lower. Then a baby cried. So he stopped and said in his normal voice "Bless her heart." Then started right back where he left off with the low notes, and kept going lower. That was awesome.
And I would stare at one particular record album cover and wish I had one of the cool-looking Fender electric guitars the guys were holding (which are probably now worth a small fortune if they kept them.)
Then after church the grown-ups would stand around talking and the other kids and I would chase each other other around the church building in the dark. And then I would fall down the basement stairs and get a black eye. Then we would walk home.
Here is video clip of the talented Duke Dumas on guitar:
The full band:
