In the early 80’s, I was playing with the Bernie Pearl Band and one night we opened for Smokey Wilson at The Music Machine out on Pico on Los Angeles’ Westside. Smokey was a real showman; he fronted a 7 piece band with a horn section and sported a powder blue 3-piece suit with a cowboy hat to match. He’d hit the stage after his band warmed up the audience with two or three tunes.

In those days, Smokey traveled in a trailer. At some point during Bernie’s set, my girlfriend Lynda took him out there for a little taste. I don’t know how much of our set he actually heard but when we came off, he told me he liked my playing and invited me to sit in for his set. We had a drink at the bar and he said, “once the band gets going you come up with me”. We had a couple more shots and I asked him what key the band would be in when we hit the stage. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Son, I play so many keys”.

As we walked toward the stage, I still didn’t know. We passed the horn section on the way to my spot and, in desperation, I asked them for the key. The trumpet man said “F#”. F#! A lot of harp players don’t carry a “B” harp which is what is needed for cross position in F#. Smokey strapped on his guitar, grabbed the mike, looked at me and said, “take one”. We’re in F# and he puts the spotlight on me right out of the gate. But the trumpet man saved my ass. If no trumpet man, I’m punked in front of a full house. I tore up that solo and Smokey ignored me until his final song. It was ok with me because fitting in with a solid horn section is one of my favorite things.

Smokey’s gone now, but he taught valuable lessons for harp players that night: be prepared for the flats and sharps, beware of a guitar slinger in a powder blue suit and always make nice with the horn section.

For the record, according to L.A. bass player Ron Battle, that trumpet player was, most likely, Joe Campbell. This many years later, thank you Joe. Smokey will never know.

Rick Smith is a musician and harp player (that’s a harmonica folks) from Helendale, California.

You left your pride in the horrors,
The desolate errors
— Giuseppe Ungaretti

See, evening’s shadow quickly turns to night,
and we are still hungry for love.

*

We are not fecund, not firm, our infirmities even more
bounteous, but we still fancy riding the wild horse!

*

Progress wreaks havoc with courtship,
our life stories reduced: “How I spend Friday nights,
My favorite movies, Six things I could never live without;”
I weep, no good can come of this.

*

Beware, you women, of images of shirtless men baring
bulky bellies, or missing the tops of their heads due
perhaps to a purposeful camera. Shun too the juveniles
sending come-hither messages, secretly wishing to marry
their mothers: No good can come of this.

*

Lo, here is a man with promise,
plan an hour meeting where others congregate;
I lament, I tire: the odds are slim,
and what purpose, this?

*

We are keen for company of a kindred spirit,
the full spray of love’s pleasures.
Pray, what does the Oracle say this day?
Go, see the illuminated screen, swipe right.

Joanne Brown is a strategic communications consultant, writer, and poet. Her corporate work can be found at joannebrown.com, and her poetry has been featured in Persimmon Tree and Evening Street Review.

A R T S   If we are going to make music together there definitely need to be some ground rules. First of all, we will get along much better if you wash your hands, not sometimes, but as a matter of course whenever you are even thinking about touching my body parts. Who wants germs and/ or lunch fragments coming between us in this relationship? We might not be curing cancer here, but I know that you know that I know that we are going to be intimate. So let’s start off clean shall we?

Your first assignment will be to give me a name. Just do it. B.B. King, Eric Clapton and Willie Nelson all have names for their guitars. Anyway you don’t want to be in a relationship where you don’t have a name for the other party. Imagine a life of being referred to as hey you. The wrong name is like a wrong set of strings. It will mess us both up.

So listen, while its’s technically true that I am Gretsch Boxcar Model 9200 serial number CAXR 165214 that you bought off the internet, can you fit all of that into a name? Meanwhile, before you commit, try using endearments such as “Good morning, beautiful. Are we ready to set the musical world on its ear today?” Yes indeed, you will need to talk to me the same way you talk to your golf balls or chocolate chips. It’s a relationship. We have to relate, Partner.

What a guitar has to say and the way it gets said is the foundation of a relationship with the human voice. Every guitar, of course, has its own particular sound, and it is important to not get in a hurry making demands or blaming each other when things aren’t exactly right between us. Does that sound impossible? Ask your teacher if you need clarification on any of this, and by the way, how’s it going with choosing a name? If you get stuck, consider Carmine, not spelled like the opera, but mysterious, a little wild, and red is the color of your true love’s finish.

I’d kind of like to wrap up this first occasion with an overview: in a relationship, the essence is in the relating. Remember the four agreements: “be impeccable with your word, don’t take anything personally, don’t make assumptions, and always do your best.”

So, same time tomorrow?

Anne Animas lives, writes and hides out in Southern Colorado.

A R T S   I first encountered Bob Dylan in 1964 when I was asked to perform Blowin’ In The Wind at an Elks dinner in Ballard, California. I was a tender 12 at the time and I’d actually been asked to perform two songs that night. The other was If I Had A Hammer. I’d heard that song the year before on the popular TV show, Hootenanny! but I’d never heard Blowin’. I loved that show. I’d watched Sing Along With Mitch and played albums by Joe and Eddie, the Kingston Trio, Odetta and many others since I was a kid so when Hootenanny! aired, I was hooked. It was in fact the popular single, Walk Right In by the Rooftop Singers that fired my obsession with the 12-string guitar so I guess you can say I’m a folkie from way back.

Someone pointed me to Bob Dylan so that I could learn Blowin’ In The Wind for that gig, but I think I learned it from the cover by Peter, Paul & Mary. I liked the song. I thought it was pretty, but it was the lyrics that grabbed me. It sounded like an anthem. It was saying something important, a message I’d heard many times before, but this time it was delivered in a way that was like a bullet in the brain. I had to find the original recording.

When I brought home The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and tore off the cellophane wrapping, I had no idea my life was about to change and that it would continue to change and evolve for the entire time I’d walk this planet. I think I’d been prepared, though. I think all of those folksingers before had been leading me up that path, some gently—the Kingston Trio, for instance—and some not so gently, like Odetta. On that afternoon Dylan became a lifelong mentor. Oh, he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t even know I exist, but his work affected me like it has affected so many other songwriters. It’s safe to say I don’t where the hell I’d be musically if he hadn’t happened. I don’t know where music would be.

SK Waller is an author and composer. Books One and Two (With A Dream and With A Bullet) of her rock and roll series, Beyond The Bridge,  takes places in late 70s London. Read more at SK Waller Blog and SKWaller.com.

Hear Bob Dylan Recite His Nobel Prize in Literature Lecture