I've never been in it for the money. Only a select few out of the millions that play instruments ever really make money at music. I've been in it for love since the first time I held a guitar—love of the guitar, love of the spotlight, and most of all, love of the work.
Yeah. I love playing in front of people. That's why when Barry Manilow said way back in the early ’70s that he didn't care if he ever played in front of people again, I wrote his considerable talents off my list of favorites.
Yes. Sigh. I admit it. I used to like Barry Manilow. I used to like Bette Midler, too. Peter Frampton. My ex-wife even had me listening to Donna Summers.
When I was 14 or 15, I was stuck on a girl named Denise Combs. Man! I would have done anything for her.She had an older sister named Rocky who was wild and lived pretty much as a hippy-chick. Free. Wide open. Cool.
Denise was the opposite in many ways. She was reserved and very smart. She was logical and sensible. And I had a thing for her in a big way.
I was still in my learning process on guitar, but I was coming along, when Denise asked me if I would play guitar with her folk choir when they did the music for a Catholic Church service. I jumped on the chance like a dog on a bone! I would get to play guitar in front of people and I would get to be with Denise Combs. That's the best of two worlds.
This is also the time I began playing in church.
We played "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield, which was chosen as a sort of protest through the church youth of the Viet Nam War. I liked it because I got to rip off a couple of hot licks at the end of the song. And I got to be with Denise Combs.
Up to this point, I had not generated the nerve to ask Denise out. I was just pining over her.
We played for the service and all went well. At the end of the service as a closing song, I strapped on my guitar, plugged in my amp and we played the song. I rocked out through the ending lead work (which I embellished generously) and was quite satisfied when it was over.
As the congregation was leaving, one little old lady worked very hard to get up to the alter where I was packing up my gear. She was a sweet-looking lady with a very pleasant face. She walked directly up to me and said very sternly, "I don't think there is anyplace in church for electric guitars!" Then she turned and walked away.
I didn't play in church for quite a while after that, but I started working with a lot of bands. About eight years later, I was asked to help out with the folk choir at the Catholic church services on England Air Force Base, Louisiana. I started helping out and eventually converted to Catholicism there. It was a good time for me to play with a group of young singers and another lady who played acoustic guitar. And I didn't know it, but I was learning how to handle kids in a musical situation.
I was eventually stationed in Incirlik AFB in Turkey. There I took the job of director of the folk choir and found just how hard it is to play a regular job every week and how difficult it was to keep kids participating in the church services. I also found what did and didn't work in a church setting. Boring folk tunes about love flowers worked okay, George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" did not. The priest of the base walked over to me—in a very similar fashion to one that I had witnessed years before—and said, "There's no place for "My Sweet Lord" in a Catholic church service."
I stayed away from playing in churches after my tour in Turkey, but was enticedto play again at church after joining a charismatic church in Shelby, NC. When the church discovered I had musical talent, they quickly recruited me for their praise band. This experience was the worst I ever ran into when doing work for a higher cause. The members of this band, with the exception of the legally deaf drummer, were petty, self-indulgent people. They fought over glory of their own name and used formula music in the form of tapes without the lead vocal parts to try to show off rather than sing praises to the true higher cause.
Shortly after being made minister of music there, I resigned and moved on. Playing music in a church was developing a pattern.
Then I discovered the church I have been with for nearly eight years. They welcomed my music—on my terms. They invited me to participate, invited me to suggest, and taught me more about music than I had learned in the previous 20 years. Not about style, not about technique, but about heart. I periodically play music with the kids, play the guitar for a communion service every Wednesday evening, and help led the praise and worship band for the Sunday evening service. But it's not just prepackaged folk music.
Our group does ska music, reggae, rock and folk.
I find that now, rather than playing for Denise (figuratively), I am finally playing for a higher cause.