Six Teachers Who Changed My Life BY SHAWN HAMMOND
As I wracked my brain to think of something that wasn’t lame
to say here this month, something
drew me back to the guitar-playing days of my youth. I got
to thinking about the first musicians I ever knew and how they
affected me. As I thought about
it more, I realized I owe six guys
a debt of gratitude for aiding me
on the path to the fortunate situation I find myself in today.
[NAME WITHHELD]. I
can’t, in good conscience, name
the first true guitarist I took lessons from. He was in the classical
program at the local university,
and he fit pretty much every
negative stereotype you can
imagine for someone of that
persuasion: He never smiled, he
always wore slacks and a tie with
his white button-down shirt, and
he loathed everything I loved
about music. Looking back, I
guess I can’t blame him for not
being enthused about me—a
12-year-old kid clocking his year
on acoustic guitar to meet mom’s
required period for proving I was
serious about the instrument so
that she’d let me buy a solidbody.
But the dude never even tried to
convert me to what he dug about
guitar. He was just clocking time,
too. He didn’t give a crap one
week when he tried to correct my
plucking position and hurt the
bandaged wound on my forearm,
and he openly mocked me for
wanting to play electric guitar. So
why am I grateful? He gave me
my first and perhaps most poignant lesson on how lame it is to
be an uptight jackass about music
and to be dismissive of others
because of their tastes.
Jim Busby. Once mom real-
ized classical dude was a jerk,
she found the most happening
guitar-lesson spot in good ol’
Provo, Utah—Herger Music. I
started taking lessons with Jim
Busby, who had a blueburst
Yamaha double-cutaway and was
refreshingly patient, positive, and
nice. Jim made lessons fun—
something to look forward to—
even though I was still too much
of a novice to make my new Strat
play the stuff I wanted to play,
and wouldn’t truly appreciate the
twanging awesomeness of Bill
Kirchen’s “Hot Rod Lincoln” for
a few more years. He also gave
my confidence a massive boost
one day when he publicly praised
my studiousness to one of his
other pupils. Thank you, Jim!
Michael Dowdle’s latest album,
Convergence, is chock-full of
blistering chops of the sort that’ve
made him a session ace in his native Utah and throughout the US.
for The Oprah Winfrey Show
and The Today Show, among
many others. I pestered Mike
for a year or so when I was 16
or 17, and eventually he gave
in and took me on as his only
student. I wanted to learn how
to be a studio guy, because I
figured that way I could eventually have a family but still have
a steady job in music without having to be on the road
(y’know, because becoming a
rock god was so likely—pshaw!).
Mike taught me that persistence pays off, that diversity and
discipline are great things, and
that studio work would’ve been
the death of me. Huh? Yeah.
Style-wise, Mike and I are much
different today—check out his
über-polished, Eric Johnson-meets-Larry Carlton ripping on
You Tube for yourself—but back
then we weren’t. But I’m grateful
he was frank with me about how
tedious and job-like session work
can often be. He let me tag along
to sessions at the area’s biggest
studios, and I realized my punk-tinged spirit would wither in that
world. I still learned tons from
him—and in a way he saved my
soul. Thank you, Michael!
Here’s to these caring, talented,
and influential people, and the
countless others like them in all
our lives. I wish you the best.
Michael Dowdle. As I
became more of a guitar freak
over my teenage years, I came
to idolize a local hero named
Michael Dowdle. Besides being
a clinician for Digi Tech, a Mike
Varney’s “Spotlight” subject,
and the go-to session player for
most TV and radio commercials
and most albums being recorded in the entire state, Mike did
sessions for every national TV
network, cable channels, and
feature films. He wrote the
ABC Sports theme, CNBC’s
Hardball theme, and recorded
Shawn Hammond
shawn@premierguitar.com
