Some of my earliest memories were of my daddy playing guitar and singing with a buddy of his on Sunday afternoons in the front yard of our house. They sat in straight back cane-bottom chairs under a shady oak tree, strumming and singing, drinking Black & White Scotch in between songs and smoking cigarettes, and talking about songs they knew. Years later, Daddy crippled his left forearm and ended his playing guitar.
I started learning to play guitar when I was 14, a new inmate at the Florida Industrial School, a reform school in Marianna, Florida. Scott Brantley, another inmate from Miami, taught me the basic chords and let me practice on his Kay acoustic guitar until I got a Sears and Roebuck Silvertone arch top. Scott performed early rock & roll, rock-a-billy, blues, and country. Many evenings were spent practicing songs and playing, altho I didn't sing publicly. I spent 17 months incarcerated on that trip and there was a lot of time to practice.
After I was released, I went back to the same environment that had influenced me toward my initial delinquency. Within 6 months I gravitated back into my delinquent behavior and was recommitted to the reform school again, now renamed the Florida School for Boys. I had continued playing guitar and during this incarceration, I started performing publicly. FSB had a Variety Club band ran by Mr. Womack. As an inmate, I played guitar and sang with this band at local high school assemblies and civic functions, creating several precious memories that I treasure.
After I left FSB (now Arthur Dozier Training School) on a college scholarship from the Florida Sheriff's Association in '59, I played at home or at my girl's house. I also played at the local National Guard Armory square dances on Saturday nights. After flunking out of college, I played in a couple of bands at different honky-tonks back in my hometown of Arcadia. I also played solo at lounges and country clubs. In the US Army, I played around the barracks most of the time.
Starting my career with the Alabama Department of Corrections, I attempted unsuccessfully to integrate my music with correctional counseling of inmates, and my private statistical research of inmates. Gradually, I became more of a garage band solo act, and like now, mostly I play around the house.
More to follow....;)Chazzman
