BRY: I MAKE MY OWN MUSIC - JAZZ, BLUES ETC.
Hello and welcome! I am a guitar player and student. I have played guitar since about 1962.
You can read more of my history farther down this page, but now I am taking jazz
guitar lessons and studying everything I can about all aspects of playing guitar.
I take lessons at High Note Music in Longwood, Florida, but actually I study every
day of the week, practicing to improve my skills, and learning new songs. I plan
to keep studying forever... here are some recent videos from our jam band workshop..
You'll see music videos of Bry, Judie, Adam, Tommy, Amy and JonAshley having fun on three tunes.
My earliest Rock, Blues and R&B memories:
As a pre-schooler in the 50s, I listened to some of my parents' stirring 78 rpm records at home, like: "Hamp's Boogie-Woogie" by Lionel Hampton.
and and "Bad Penny Blues" by Humphrey Littleton.
It was the recordings of musicians like Hamp, Louis Armstrong, Kenny Ball and Elvis
which caught my attention early on. Later on I passed by the trumpet players in favour
of guys like Chuck Berry, Lightning Hopkins, Howling Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson II.
Folk, rock & roll, rhythm, skiffle, jazz, big band and rockabilly styles were all the styles of music I grew up with.
I remember an amazing
Gene Vincent and His Bluecaps performance around 1960 or 1961.
The opening act was my brother's band, Little Tony and the Sundowners at the CORN EXCHANGE
in Cambridge. It may have been his other band from that era: Johnny R&B Philips and
the HI-Fis. I got to help set up the microphones & wiring for the evening.
It was incredible. Gene Vincent in a skin tight leather suit was quite a sight,
and man could he ROCK!
I also could never forget THIS: Approximately 1962 - seeing Jesse Fuller (one man band)
at Brighton Town Hall, singing San Francisco Bay Blues etc. WOW!
In those days (around 1962 or 63) I went to see the AMAZING Johnny Kidd and the Pirates.
This was a band that SHAPED and FORMED the sound of British Rock, WELL before the Beatles
were famous. Their guitar player, John Weider (?) was THE role model for many British guitarists of the early 1960s.
Around 1962-64, I played in a group called 'The Swinging Vibros' in Cambridge.
We were all 13 to 14 years old! We consisted of Nick Barraclough, John Anderson, myself and Willie (John Wilson) the drummer.
Our songs were mostly ones by the Beatles, Chuck Berry & The Kinks. Ee also did
a few other pop and folk tunes.
Here's all I can tell you about the Vibros, but in a bit more detail:
We started as a trio in about January 1963 with Nick Barraclough (now a BBC Presenter, folk and blues musician and music historian) playing guitar and responsible for much of the arranging. I remember he was good at dissecting songs and figuring out the chords. We copied the songs of the Beatles, Stones, etc. I Wanna Be Your Man, She Loves You, and also did a couple of instrumentals ("The Theme from Zed Cars," he he!)that we put together ourselves.
Barraclough at the time lived on Blinco Grove in Cambridge, right in between the school we all went to until
1962, Morley Memorial and on the other side, the church where the three of us learned to sing, as choir boys!
We were in a boys choir at St. John the Evangelist Church in Cambridge until they kicked ME out for talking too much!
Nick is now living in the Cambridge area and still working at the BBC and playing live music.
John Anderson lived off Cherry Hinton Road just on the other side from where Blinco Grove interesects, on a dead-end street. His mother had just won a refrigerator in a cereal box contest! John hasn't been heard from in many many years.
John Anderson strummed the rhythm guitar, usually an acoustic. That was all we had back then.
Nick Barraclough was generally the lead singer, and was a good vocalist. He played bass, and I played lead guitar.
Our drummer from the Vibros was John "willie" Wilson... age 16 at the time. He contacted me recently, and
John is still playing drums in Yorshire.
All of our guitars were acoustic at first. For one "gig" we managed to electrify as follows:
I borrowed my brother's nice EKO semi-acoustic and his amplifier. WE had one mike for vocals fed into the same amp(!)
and for one of the other guitars, we would just toss a tape recorder mike into the sound hole and connected it to
a little FIVE WATT amplifer. It did work though!
That was how we performed at a talent show at a girls' school somewhere in Cambridge around 1964.
If I am not mistaken, I think this was held at the Perse Girls School.
Nick Barraclough's first "BASS" was actually an ordinary arch-top, 6-string guitar with the strings exchanged to 4 bass strings! It was all we could get!! The thing made an ungodly thumping sound!
By the way, my brother, Ivan Carling seems to know almost everything about everyone who was ever a pop musician in Cambridge. He played in many of the groups there from 1964-2007!
The Cambridge Evening News once did a massive article about the history of pop music in Cambridge and he was described as the "Grand Old Man of Rock and Roll" for the area. That was in 1982!
He played in the Vikings, the Sundowners, Vogue Sound, Jokers Wild, (which included DAVE GILMOUR), Chameleon etc. His bands frequently opened for a lot of the big acts that came to town for a number of years.
He has produced recordings for the Soft Boys and others.
As for me, I was always around musicians. I went to school with the likes
of Tim Renwick, Dave Gilmour Roger Waters etc. in England,
and later repaired guitars, amplifiers, mixers and organs in Nashville for everyone
from Charlie Daniels and Crystal Gayle to the Christ Is The Answer Band 1972-1976.
During that time I also played electric lead guitar in two Christian Musical productions,
and also played acoustic guitar and sang two Ken Gulliksen songs to my wife as she walked down the aisle
in our wedding!
I remember listening to the wonderful blues records of Lightning Hopkins, and also: Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee
Later I enjoyed John Mayall, Fleetwood Mac, Eric Clapton & others in their Blues Days.
I like ALL styles of music if it is done well: JAZZ, Blues, Skiffle, Rock & Roll, Zydeco,
R&B, New Wave, Jug Band, Bluegrass, Classical, Gospel, Folk etc.
GENERATIONS THREE at the HIGH NOTE MUSIC RECITAL JULY 20, 2007
| SEARCH THIS SITE |
Rhythm'n blues was pioneered in England by Alexis Korner, Cyril Davies, and Chris Barber.
As well as playing R&B in his traditional jazz band, Barber promoted British tours by
Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, and Muddy Waters - and the sight
of these American giants prompted Korner and Davies to form BLUES INCORPORATED, playing a style of music unheard of in British clubs.
Unable to get suitable gigs, they opened their own club, known as The Ealing Club,
in premises beneath the ABC tea-shop near Ealing Broadway underground station on
March 17th 1962......a couple of weeks before Clapton's 17th birthday.
The club was packed solid every week, with many aspiring musicians taking the stage for
a blow, and within a few months, other R&B bands began to creep out of rehersal halls,
like the Mann-Hug Blues Brothers, Georgie Fame and the Flames, and the Rolling Stones.
Other favorite 70s, 80s and 90s musicians:
(It's HARD for me to list these names without putting adjectives like "THE AMAZING" or "THE INCREDIBLE" before each one!!)
From the 60s I like:
Early on, from THE 1950s, I enjoy:
How did they get that amazing 1960s SOUND? One instrument was the British VOX ORGAN
The 1970s featured the Isle of Wight Music Festivals. Unfortunately I was an impoverished U.S. college student in those days and didn't get to any of these interesting events!
A Brief History of British Pop Music - Great information not found elsewhere on the web!
And here's: Christer & Vanja Fridhammar's Blues Music, Roots and Psychedelia
If you have read this far, and if you are a musician, you might also enjoy checking out GIG MAGAZINE.
More sources for information about Fleetwood Mac and other musicians:
