Seems to have been a very cool evening, thanks for the pics RRH.
Claude.

Lovely photos RRH, the 1 of you and Texas is a Forum Treasure and you look very professional on the stage Bro!

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

And the beast was a cool guy in the Jean Cocteau movie.
Claude.

Good Pics Mike, The Tele you're pickin looks like a Classic Player Deluxe there want to eloborate?

Thanks for the words of encouragement. It was a friggin' blast!

Yep, it's a 2006 reissue '72 Telecaster Deluxe. I bought it used last fall. Apparently the white paint job was a factory special run for one of the big-box music stores (Sam Ash or Guitar Center). It's a great guitar. I call it my "Fender Les Paul."

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I really like all them "Aster" guitars. You know, like the Stratoc, Telec and Jazzm.

Haha, awesome pics!!!! Thank you, RRH! I wish I could've been there! It looked like tons of fun.

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"If it's planned, it's boring." - Freddie Mercury

Great pics and story RR, Tex youda Gal,

PS separated at birth RR & EC

You rock Mike. Texas too .............. Mike

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The blues ain't nothin but a good man feelin bad.

OK finally, I have time to post. I'm back in Houston now, staying awake by the power of Red Bull.

Well, last week when we were getting ready to go I went on the Austin Blues Society's website to see whether or not there were any shows worth sacrificing vital hours of sleep for. I noticed that on Monday night they host a jam at Antone's and I thought that sounded great. Plus I always want to meet and support the people in local blues societies, they do a lot for musicians.

We got there way early to hang out and talk with people. When I sign the list somewhere I've never been before I always get the "Can you play rhythm and lead?" with the "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" look.
It was the first time I've ever been to Antone's (or all of Austin for that matter) to play in front of a public audience. Last year at National Guitar Workshop we had a private jam at Antone's in the middle of the day with just students and teachers. I was actually more scared of it back then than I am now.

After the first few sets of jammers played the guy in charge of the jam got up and announced that we had a special guest in the house, Pinetop Perkins! I was pretty excited about that, how many times do you actually get to see a member of Muddy Water's band at a regular blues jam? Although this ended up not being a regular blues jam at all. A few minutes later I noticed a couple of guys walk in who looked very familiar. In fact, I thought one of them looked a lot like Hubert Sumlin. But no, that couldn't be possible. But as he got closer I noticed that some people had jumped up to shake hands with him. But still, it wasn't possible. Then the guy got back up on the mic and announced that we had another two special guests, Hubert Sumlin and Bob Margolin. So I went to go say hi, and I let them know that I played guitar and that I was looking forward to seeing them the next day at the Workshop.

They got a table set up towards the side of the stage (near where the backstage door is for those of you who've been to Antone's before) so that they could watch the jammers, meet people and sign autographs. It looked like American Idol: Chicago Blues Edition. The guys who played the first set with them watched played a bunch of heavy blues rock, and I feel kind of bad for them because they actually had a train wreck on the first song and had to start another after they bombed. But they held it together for the rest of the set.

After that they went ahead and called me up. The blues society people had already met me and knew I was from Houston and everything, so I guess they were being polite to let the new out of town kid play the opening set before the professionals took the stage. At first when I got up there I was worried about who I was going to play with since I didn't know anyone. Actually, there was one of my friends from Houston there but he didn't jam with me because neither of us can sing. I looked to see what our special guests were doing and they were fairly busy talking with people much to my relief.

The band they put me with was great. The singer/guitarist was really good and the rhythm section was outstanding. And we were actually playing blues, not blues/rock or funk or classic rock like some of the other jammers were doing, but real blues. The singer let me take a bunch of longish solos, I'm usually done in 24 bars at most but the singer would shake his head when I looked up and bass player would yell "keep going!". We used dynamics too, getting softer and louder is something that's impossible to do unless your rhythm section is listening and on the same page as you are.

I looked up a couple of times and people had stopped ordering drinks and talking and were just watching, so I didn't look up again. But I glanced up to see Bob Margolin and Hubert Sumlin staring at what my hands were doing and I was thinking "oh man, they've actually seen, and met, the guys I'm ripping off right now..."

Since they were all coming up to jam next they shortened the regular three songs a jam to two, but they actually let us do one more short song at the end of our jam. We cleared the stage pretty quick to let some volunteer roadies set everything up for the next jam. The drummer and bass player both want to play with me again, so if I'm in Austin again (which is going to be a lot more often in the near future) then I can give them a call. One person came up to me and told me that while I was playing her husband was in the restroom and when he came back out he asked who that had been playing and was really surprised when he realized it was me. I don't think panties had anything to do with that, since it's kind of hard to see through a brick wall.

The next set was really incredible. Bob Margolin and Hubert Sumlin had to use borrowed guitars, and Hubert Sumlin had to use the house amp. Bob Margolin didn't want to use the house band's Marshall so he took my Deluxe VM. I had to explain to him that I really only use four knobs, reverb, bass, treble and volume. But there's about fifteen knobs on the amp, so it looks really complex at first glance. Most of it is essentially irrelevant to playing blues. Pinetop Perkins also played, and the drummer who played with me backed them up. Since there were a lot of bass players there to jam and since this blues jam was going way over the three song limit they switched bass players every two songs. It was great because it wasn't a packed house. There were about 50-75 people there total, but you could sit at a table and there was no one standing up by the stage to block your view. The house bass player forgot his cable so they used one of my long ones. So my amp and my cord can say they jamming with Hubert Sumlin, Bob Margolin and Pinetop Perkins.

After that set I went up to say hello again (and goodbye since they were getting ready to leave). Hubert was really excited about seeing me and he was very complementary. He's just a really, really nice person. You can tell when you see him play that he's really enjoying himself. I got a picture with all of them, and talked to Bob Margolin a little bit too. It's very cool to say goodbye to Hubert Sumlin with an "I'll see you tomorrow!" at the end.

I'm going to split this up into two posts so it's easier to read. Next half of the story coming soon...

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Website: http://www.rebeccalaird.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccalairdmusic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/beckslaird
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The next day Hubert Sumlin and Bob Margolin did a clinic for us at National Guitar Workshop. It was great, I loved it. It's one thing to listen to records, it's another to have the people on those records sitting right in front of you. Bob also talked a lot about the Austin blues scene and Hubert told a lot of great stories. And when they played it was just them and no rhythm section. I tell you what, I can hardly tell half of what Hubert Sumlin plays, even sitting ten feet from him.

I noticed that Hubert had a CD up there, and that the sleeve looked a lot like the ones we have. It turns out that my parents (who both came to the clinic) met Hubert Sumlin and Bob Margolin when they first walked in about an hour earlier while I was still in class. They talked for a long time and my Mom gave them both CDs I had brought intending to give them to my teacher. They were an assortment of songs from all of last year, I wanted to give them to my teacher just because I wanted to let him know that all the things I learned last year at the Workshop really helped me out.

Had I known Hubert Sumlin would be the one to get it I probably wouldn't have included so many rock songs (one of which is a flat out goofy, crazy version of Third Stone from the Sun which I did purely for my own amusement, and some others were from my Fitzgerald's gig a couple of weeks ago with my alternative rock band) and I would have put more blues songs on there. I'm going to send an email to Bob Margolin with a little more explanation on that. But there's the blues song I wrote on there too, and even though I really feel like a need to rerecord it (I had tone issues, among other things), I like the lyrics and the singer on there is really good so I'm not quite as embarrassed about it.

After the clinic I only got to say a few words to Hubert Sumlin since a flood of people swamped him before I could get up there, but I talked to Bob Margolin and Derek O'Brian for a while afterward. Just about blues and stuff. Bob gave me one of his CDs and signed it for me, and he signed a pickguard for me too. Apparently we have a mutual friend here in Houston. He's a great guitar player that I've always been trying to get to show my licks and stuff when we jam. Bob said to tell him that he and Hubert say, "You're doing it wrong". I asked Hubert Sumlin to sign the back of the headstock of my Squier. I wasn't going to at first since I wanted my Squier to still be sort of a working, beater guitar. But it's more about the meaning of it than anything, so it doesn't matter that the headstock is a little chipped, the body a little dented and the neck a little worn. It's not a display guitar and it never will be.

And at the student concerts I played Don't Loose Your Cool and Riviera Paradise, which are the ones that russianracehorse got to see. And I got to see him play too, which was really cool. It's always nice to put a face and a person to a screen name. Hopefully we'll get to jam sometime soon.

Last year when I got back to Houston I was sort of depressed. Now I'm actually really looking forward to a lot of things. My rock band has gigs in Dallas, Austin and Houston. The guys I met at Antone's all made it a point to invite me back so I'll definitely turn up there again soon. And I can't wait to get back to playing blues around Houston too. It's been really weird these last couple of weeks with my new job, my Dad's new job, the new band and this trip. And now it you'll excuse me, I have to go tell someone that Bob says he's doing it wrong.

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Website: http://www.rebeccalaird.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccalairdmusic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/beckslaird
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Great story Texas! So glad that you posted it sooner rather than later as we were all waiting for your update Thank you for posting, perhaps you can post the pic of You, Hubert and Bob later?

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

I'll get pictures/video up as soon as I can. Which basically means I'm waiting on my Dad to upload them onto the computer. I'm the only one not taking a nap right now.

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Website: http://www.rebeccalaird.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccalairdmusic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/beckslaird
Instagram: http://instagram.com/beckslaird

TGS,

Awesome experience. Thanks for sharing.

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RK

2007 Fender Highway 1
2012 American Deluxe
2015 MIM Dave Murray HHH
2010 Fender Blacktop
1987 Fender Avalon Acoustic
2012 Marshall DSL 15 watt head

That must've been a great experience for you I'm sure, thanks for sharing, really enjoyed reading it all! Reminded me of my early days when I started playing Blues and would try to make it to as many events as possible and meeting/jamming with as many great musicians as possible, you learn so much that way. Keep it up! Can't wait to see the pics.

Congratulations to both of you. Loved reading your report TGS. Thanks for sharing. I don't know I think Tex Becs is like our own redheaded Orianthi.

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2015 Epiphone Casino Goldtop
2011 Taylor 814ce
2009 EC Custom Shop Merc Blue
2008 Schecter ATX
1964 Epi Granada E444T
Fender Super Champ XD