Post by scorpiodog on May 4, 2021 10:11:11 GMT
And his name is Frank Watkinson.
Who? You may well ask, and I'll get around to telling you in a minute, but, as is my wont, I will, as always, beat around the bush, a tree and several shrubs first.
When I look for a new song to learn, I like to listen to a lot of different versions and treatments first. This is not only to crib the good bits, but also to flesh out my understanding of the song, and to ensure that I don't crib too many good bits from one version. I want it to be my own interpretation, even though it may be coloured by other people's.
Yesterday I was rootling around in YouTube finding covers of "Delicate" by Damien Rice. I played a (very cold) gig on Friday, outside in the wind and spotty rain. A friend of mine who was also playing sang "Amy" from the album "9". I loved his version, and, by coincidence, "Cannonball" from the same album was on my set list. I haven't listened to "9" for a long while, so I did on Saturday. "Delicate" became my earworm song of the day and when I sat down with my guitar on Saturday afternoon my fingers found the opening chords and riff (it's not a difficult song). "Aha!" thought I (but not in a pirate way, that's spelled differently).
So I tinkered in a desultory manner through Sunday and got to the point where I'd completely forgotten why I wanted to learn the song in the first place, and it was then that I decided to consult the YouTube oracle.
Only a few versions came up on the search and I was listening to them all. Most were pretty good. And then I came to Frank's version.
Just him, looking like my Grandad, and an acoustic guitar. He's an OK player, simple travis picking, not much of a vocal range and sings the chorus to a different tune from the original. But by Crikey, golly gee whizz does he sell that song. Phenomenal. So I looked at one or two of his other songs (he has hundreds of vids on YT), and exactly the same thing. And then I noticed, he has 370,000 subscribers to his channel! This guy's a real success, but he says he's never played on a stage in his life, he's never done any recording and he makes YouTube vids to fill in the time when his wife's at work. By the way, when I said he looks like my Grandad, he does, but he's only a litle bit older than me.
He is now my hero. He seems to appeal to people of all ages. He takes suggestions for new songs to learn from his subscribers and he's covered some really bizarre artists, and he does it all in his own laid back, unostentatious way, but every song is interpreted faultlessly and attractively (but without any guitarry fireworks, just that steady travis picking style).
I give you 2 examples here. What do you think?
Who? You may well ask, and I'll get around to telling you in a minute, but, as is my wont, I will, as always, beat around the bush, a tree and several shrubs first.
When I look for a new song to learn, I like to listen to a lot of different versions and treatments first. This is not only to crib the good bits, but also to flesh out my understanding of the song, and to ensure that I don't crib too many good bits from one version. I want it to be my own interpretation, even though it may be coloured by other people's.
Yesterday I was rootling around in YouTube finding covers of "Delicate" by Damien Rice. I played a (very cold) gig on Friday, outside in the wind and spotty rain. A friend of mine who was also playing sang "Amy" from the album "9". I loved his version, and, by coincidence, "Cannonball" from the same album was on my set list. I haven't listened to "9" for a long while, so I did on Saturday. "Delicate" became my earworm song of the day and when I sat down with my guitar on Saturday afternoon my fingers found the opening chords and riff (it's not a difficult song). "Aha!" thought I (but not in a pirate way, that's spelled differently).
So I tinkered in a desultory manner through Sunday and got to the point where I'd completely forgotten why I wanted to learn the song in the first place, and it was then that I decided to consult the YouTube oracle.
Only a few versions came up on the search and I was listening to them all. Most were pretty good. And then I came to Frank's version.
Just him, looking like my Grandad, and an acoustic guitar. He's an OK player, simple travis picking, not much of a vocal range and sings the chorus to a different tune from the original. But by Crikey, golly gee whizz does he sell that song. Phenomenal. So I looked at one or two of his other songs (he has hundreds of vids on YT), and exactly the same thing. And then I noticed, he has 370,000 subscribers to his channel! This guy's a real success, but he says he's never played on a stage in his life, he's never done any recording and he makes YouTube vids to fill in the time when his wife's at work. By the way, when I said he looks like my Grandad, he does, but he's only a litle bit older than me.
He is now my hero. He seems to appeal to people of all ages. He takes suggestions for new songs to learn from his subscribers and he's covered some really bizarre artists, and he does it all in his own laid back, unostentatious way, but every song is interpreted faultlessly and attractively (but without any guitarry fireworks, just that steady travis picking style).
I give you 2 examples here. What do you think?