Early Musical Memories Part III

Musical memories: Part III

I wrote to my parents and told them about my roommate and his magical talent and that all I wanted for Christmas was a guitar like my roommate Ernie had.  Come Christmas morning a slender oblong boxed present was handed to me.  I was immediately suspicious and disheartened because I knew a real guitar couldn’t come in such a shallow little box.  Sure enough, when I opened the present I found a half-sized plastic toy guitar with mono-filament fishing line for strings.  It had a colorful twisted yarn lanyard as a "strap" and a small plastic crank that played a music box hidden inside the body.  I turned to my parents and said: “I’m sorry, I guess I opened one of Randy’s presents by mistake”.  Randy was my little brother, not much more than four at the time, and I assumed that anything this trivial had to be for a young child.  I was wrong.  I don't think my parents wanted to make any kind of major purchase until they saw that I was serious about this "guitar business".

I put that embarrassing toy in the back of the closet, never to be seen again and vowed that I would find a way to get a real guitar.  Over the ensuing school year I managed to convince my father that I was serious about the guitar and would do anything to obtain a real one.  I gathered my meager savings and  went down to Horner’s Music store in downtown Honolulu and bought my first real guitar.  I think it cost about $125 and I’m sure I had to do some extra yardwork to afford it.  But of all the things that I have possessed in my life, nothing brought me more joy than that first beautiful shiny Spanish guitar.  It had real wooden inlay and a seductive womanly shape.  When I put my nose in the sound hole and gave a sniff, it transported me to exotic lands of sandalwood and incense; it smelled of romance, adventure and intrigue.

At night, I would sit on my bed in my "summer P.J.s" after dinner and play and sing the folksongs that were all the rage at the time; songs by Peter Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, the Gaslight singers and others.  Soon I was lying on the bed with the guitar on top of me and often I would drift off to sleep in that position.  I've talked to other guitarists who also fell asleep with their guitars, when they were young and first unlocking its mysteries...  Years later my brother, who had the bedroom next to mine, told me he used to sit outside my door and listen.

Back at boarding school, as the folk music craze took over our campus, I became one of a fraternity of young enthusiastic players.  We would visit each other’s rooms learning new songs, chords, and finger picking techniques.  I became a master of ‘double thumbing’, 'travis picking' and other finger picking techniques.  Back at school one afternoon, hearing my roommate and me playing a duet of the haunting surf song "Pipeline", our headmaster came into our room for an appreciative listen.  Thank you, Mr. Jim Taylor, that meant a lot to us.

By my junior year, I was accomplished enough to be invited to join our school’s prestigious (in our eyes) folksinging trio the Somerset Three.  Somerset is a rural county in England.  Why this name was chosen for the group is known only to our  predecessors.  Bevo Biven, Gaylord Dillingham and I played for school sports rallies, impromptu assemblies and other engagements, often in consort with the school’s glee club and choir.  The big event of the season was the Thanksgiving gig at the Kona Steakhouse when many of the students, along with their parents, would gather for a long weekend.  Unfortunately our star, Bevo, who also played the 5-string banjo got deathly ill and couldn’t perform.  The father of my other "trio-mate" Mr. Ben Dillingham, chairman of the Hawaiian Republican Party and general all around big-wig, told Gaylord and I: "Boys...There is a saying in Show Biz...THE SHOW MUST GO ON!!!"   We had to quickly cobble together an impromptu set of tunes with some of the younger student folksingers that were in Kona that weekend and our efforts were predictably awful.  My music partners urged me to get a twelve string guitar to give us a bigger sound.  So I went back down to Horner’s Music Store in downtown Honolulu again and bought this huge twelve stringer.  The strings were way above the fret board and the only way I could play certain chords (F comes to mind) was to attach a capo to the fret board.  I adopted finger picks to beef up my sound and though it was a monster to play, it sure sounded good.  Other dorm mates used to come into my room to hear me play this big old twelve string guitar.  I loved it.  Me?  Play for you guys?  Well, OK...

The only other guitar-related event, of any note, to take place in boarding school was when my roommate and I (different roommate, different school year) got into a lively discussion on God and His sense of humor and His pension for forgiveness.  Billy Helbig had attended Catholic school before being sent off to "the rock", as we fondly called our school.  He was a very devout Catholic which meant he was scared shitless of an angry and vindictive God.  In an attempt to allay his fears about The Almighty and His punishments.  I opened up our dorm-room window and shouted into the night sky: "Hey God...fuck you!"  With a heart-stopping shriek, my roommate grabbed his pen knife and stuck it into my guitar.  I don’t remember what happened after that I was so horrified.  He had violated my precious baby!   So I had to laugh when he flopped down on his bed and promptly hit his head.
  

I got dumped from the trio because I was busy with the basketball team and I got involved with a new musical venture that recently arrived at our school; musical theater.  My former Somerset Three music mates regrouped as a duo.  They called themselves "The Maudlin Minstrels".  I think they were "maudlin" because they missed me...  Anyway a new teacher and his wife were huge Gilbert and Sullivan fans and convinced the headmaster that the school should put on "The Mikado".  My brother and I both got singing leads in the play and we had a ball.  The next year I was the pirate king in "The Pirates of Penzance".  This was the most fun I had in my five years in boarding school.  Forget you "Maudlin Minstrels"!  I'm singing on stage in a Kabuki outfit complete with makeup, Japanese Samurai wig and fumanchu fake mustache!  Being the shameless extrovert that I am, I was in heaven.  My junior year, when I was rehearsing my part as the pirate king, our headmaster, Mr. Taylor, came up to me and said:  "Mike, my boy, you don't look at all well.  I think you should go visit Mrs. Pelfrey in the infirmary."   It turns out that Mr. Taylor was my understudy and he desperately wanted my part (it turns out he was a closet thespian...).   I told him I was fine and I would be going stage as planned.  He was free to dress up like a pirate king and wait in the wings if he wanted...  The student body and many of the local islanders had a blast watching us make spectacles of ourselves up on stage in spot lights.  Personally, I found it quite thrilling to be performing in front of an audience.  I still do...

Many years later when I was playing music professionally, my partner, David Beamer, used to get so nervous before we played he couldn't eat for fear of tossing his cookies.  I never understood this "stage fright" affliction.  I guess I'm just shameless that way...  L&K  Mickey da Mayor