|
I love many different kinds of music, but to me, there is nothing like a sad or sweet or
worried or sentimental song sung to the
sound of a finger-picked steel string guitar.
Whether it was African-American
blues players like Mississippi John Hurt and Big Bill Broonzey, or American
singer-songwriters like Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Jackson C. Frank, Jim Croce and James Taylor,
or British folkies like John Renbourn, Bert Jansch, Ralph McTell, Colin Wilkie and Wizz Jones,
or the Germans like Hannes Wader, Klaus Weiland, Werner Laemmerhirt and Peter Finger,
or just someone with a guitar and fingerpicks on a streetcorner in New Orleans,
in Vondelpark in Amsterdam or on a beach in the South of France, that was the
music that I have always loved and that was the soundtrack of my youth.
Of course, when you love a certain kind of music that much, you want to be able
to play it yourself. I was so fortunate as to meet people who have generously
passed their inspiration on to me. Mostly, what I do is to cover the classics
such as Paul Simon's "April" and Jackson C. Frank's "Blues Run the Game." Of course,
you can listen to those on CD anytime you want, but I'm not ashamed of just playing
them like that, pretty much the way they were originally recorded. Hearing that silver
sound of a real steel string hit by a metal fingerpick is something that people appreciate,
even if the original song is right there on CD.
I also do some originals, but those are for me more than for anyone else, really.
What I really treasure, though, are the songs that I have picked up along the way from
people without fame and fortune, songs that were either never recorded or, if they
were, have long since gone out of print. I call these endangered songs, because
if people like me don't play them anymore, they will be lost and forgotten forever. Therefore,
I intend to make recordings of these songs and post them here. When I get around to it...
For now, I'll just show you what guitars I play and how I set them up.
|
