The Longest Day of the Year...

I'm a slide guitar player and once at a blues jam I covered an old tune by slide great Elmo James. Afterwards someone took me aside and explained I had not done the song like SRV did it. I'm an SRV fan seeing him many times back in the day up close and personal in small Texas roadhouses and I was not aware that he had cover that tune also. 

Another time we got a little band together for something and with a keyboard player we were going to cover a Beatles tune. In the course of rehearsal someone stopped the band and informed the drummer that Ringo had hit the high hat cymbal 4 times right there instead of the three times he had hit it. The keyboard player missed the gig for some reason so we never did the tune and I don't know if the drummer ever mastered the suggested changes.   

I spent yesterday on and off jamming with my grandkids. I played tuba and guitar. They grabbed up whatever was handy blowing and banging with uninhibited glee. It was everything I had ever wanted in a jam session. People were creating and making it all up as we went along. It happened to be the summer solstice and I would say there was a definite old soul primitive ancient mysterious celebration to the feel of these tunes.          

Later when browsing the events of the world on the internet I found this. It really resonated with me just as these tunes had resonated with this band of heathens. I've played on stages and concerts halls and done all kind of things but this sums up what it has really all been about for me. It's just been hard to find people that felt this way also.