Jorg, session musicians from around the world and maybe you soon!
Influences
Like most of us I find encouragement and inspiration in great artists and their work – cool people like Jimi Hendrix, Walker Evans, Barack Obama, Johnny Cash, Gerhard Richter, PJ Harvey, Robert Plant - and my children. Peace.
Where to begin? Pretty early I realized that cool people didn't play soccer or race cars: really cool people wrote songs and performed on stage. – Listening to the Stones on my mother's little radio in her kitchen kind of set me off. – I tried to follow my dream and was able to collect enough money among my family and friends for the down payment on my first Fender Stratocaster, an awfully heavy late 70s axe which I traded in for a Gibson SG later. A journey through eras and style began.
I had always been fascinated by artists who were rebels in the music industry and therefore hard to find on the radio, especially in some Duckburg-like little town in Germany where I grew up. I didn't really like lessons for classical guitar and I particularly despised authority and obedience (& have never got over it...). So, I found it exceptionally appealing when Punk encouraged me to create a song by using a maximum of four easy chords - Halleluja!
I didn't really make too many friends in my neighborhood at that time, as I followed the recommendation of my guitar dealer: "Your guitar has to be played loud to sound good!" - I was however still envying "real" guitarists for their discipline and playing technique, like Marc Knopfler. And I started digging deeper. My father had all these Johnny Cash records and I became really fond of the guitar playing of Luther Perkins - wow, what a twang! While exploring traditional American music and Rock and Roll I got also more and more drawn into electronics and recording stuff, which led to my EP "In The Heat" that had included a couple of songs I wrote about my travels in the US.
Anyway, I guess for now the guitar won. Beyond production gadgets I finally got it how to appreciate a good song.
During all that time I was also fortunate enough to be able to spend time in the same room together with great artists like Peter Gabriel, Daniel Lanois, David Lindley, Johnette Napolitano and Chris Whitley.
Jorg, session musicians from around the world and maybe you soon!
