TOMMY JONES ON WILBURN BROTHERS SHOW

[charlie mccabe]

I REMEMBER SEEING TOMMY JONES DO ORANGE BLOSSOM SPECIAL BACK IN THE EARLY SEVENTIES .........BUT I COULDN'T REMEMBER WHAT SHOW IT WAS ON ........ I RECENTLY FOUND OUT IT WAS THE WILLBURN BROTHERS SHOW WITH GUEST TEX RITTER AND JEAN SHEPARD ......ACORDING TO GOOGLE.......DOES ANY ONE HAVE A DVD OR VHS COPY OF IT.??????....... I WOULD GIVE ANYTHING TO SEE THAT AGAIN .....cmccabe777@hotmail.com..

[apargeter]

Hi Charlie,

I don't think it's from the show you mention but there is an incredible performance by Tommy of Black Mountain Rag & Orange Blossom Special here on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=WJohIxT7bAg

There are some things you tell yourself you might(?) be able to play if only you devoted enough time to practising them but I couldn't get near this if I had several lifetimes of practice.

Cheers,

Andrew

[RandeDager]

Andrew, I could very well have been backstage watching this from the side when it was taped. During one of my weeks that I spent with Tommy we went to Boots' club about 5 nights in a row and I watched every detail every night and then we'd go back to his house and play half the night. It was during that week that we went to Chet's office and that's where I first met John Knowles and watched him play "I'm in the Mood for Love" and also got to listen to part of a phone conversation between Chet and Terry McMillan. Tommy also had a girlfriend at the time named Shiela. Sorry, this was rambling but it brought back memories of a great week.

[apargeter]

Hi Rande,

That's not rambling - it's history. Here in the UK I only knew of all these guitarists through finding LPs, mainly in second hand shops. Until the internet came along I never even saw any of them play. For many years all I had was these LPs. Discovering the 'Me and Chet' & 'Me and Jerry' albums completely changed my life. Jerry Reed became my particular guitar hero. I changed totally to playing a nylon string guitar and spent countless hours trying to work out the technique from the records. I can remember that 'Jerry's Breakdown' completely escaped me and I had absolutely no idea how it was played until I managed to get John Knowles book from the States, having seen it advertised in a guitar magazine. Only much later did I discover people like Tommy Jones, Lenny Breau, Thom Bresh, Buster B. Jones.etc. I used to talk to others on the old Jerry Reed forum (although it was the middle of the night over here) and some very kindly sent me video tapes so that I could see these guitarists playing for the very first time (this was well before Youtube etc.). Some on this board might just remember I used to play Jerry & Buster numbers on the old 'pickin' room' when it first started although I always found it very weird playing to people who were thousands of miles away that I could not see and I also found staying up until 3:00am in the morning just got too much for me. Over here I have never met another guitarist who plays in this style let alone jammed with anybody. For many years when I tried nylon string guitars out in guitar shops the dealers used to ask me whose pieces I was playing and how the technique worked because they'd never heard anything like it before.

Now that's rambling! Everything that you guys tell me about these guitarists and how you knew them is just incredible and I can never get enough of it. Thank you so much for all the memories.

Cheers,

Andrew