Never say wooo in a horse race

 That's what Charlie Lane used to say for just about everything . Ya gotta keep moving, keep trying and keep learning...which brings me to the story....I've had a huge breakthrough in my music and I'm playing things I never thought would be possible , especially when approaching my 72nd birthday.

For years I just kinda chewed around the edges of music. I was convinced all you needed was 3 chords and all I really wanted was enough guitar skill to allow me to sing, I love to sing . There's a famous story out there about a guy named Red that grew up playing with Hank Williams. When Hank hit it big he called Red and invited him back to the band and Red told him  "jeez Hank, you know I only play G, D and C " and Hank told him " hell Red , that's all there is ".....well I was Red for a looong time . Then once I quit hanging around with a bunch of fishing guides that only drank beer and talked about who ever wasn't there I had time to play more, work more. I got to where I could roll the chords which is really just a mix of magors, minors, flats and augmented chords. I wrote some silly songs but realized it was taking time away from what I really like to do and that's sing. I've always been able to belt out a song.

But through the years I was always kinda jelly of the guys who had the ear and talent to tune the guitar to open chords and create entirely new sounds. But, I struggled just with tuning a guitar traditionally and even thought I was kinda tone deaf...so...being a lyric guy I'd look for songs that fit me and my views of life, my experiences , my hopes and I found an arsenal of about 300 songs that I learned in the last 20 years.  But I was a little bored with it and kinda tired of playing all the drinking and gizmo songs to my audiences in Mexico....

And then the magic....I was on the treadmill in the gym a month ago and I bumped into this song by Jason Isbell. I haven't heard such a cool song since I got Gary Allan singing Todd Snider's Long Year . I was inspired...but there was a problem....I'd watch the video's and Jason was playing rhythm guitar but up the neck which meant he had to be using open tuning . Now days you can find just about anything on U Tube so I found a tutorial then got out my trusty Snark tuner and tuned to open D and walla, magic. It's like other things in life that you're intimidated by , once you get going on it it's not as hard or intimidating as you thought and then you're off on a whole new level. New opportunity, new sounds, new stories to come...

Jason Isbell's Speed Trap Town in open D with a nice double bass sound. A haunting story of real life decisions, the good in people, the bad in people.....