Silver Shoes

A few months ago I was walking along East Houston Street early in the morning, and a woman walking quickly toward the subway passed me wearing silver shoes. I heard a line from a song in my head: “Brass buttons, green silks, and silver shoes…”

It took me a moment to remember which song the line came from, but it was the Gram Parsons song “Brass Buttons.” Gram Parsons is one example of what I’ve enjoyed so much over the years I’ve played guitar: the excitement of discovering new worlds. I had fallen in love with old country music when I was teaching myself guitar, but as much as I loved Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Ernest Tubb, and others, I always felt a gap between me in 1991 and their music decades earlier.

Gram Parsons bridged that gap for me. He wrote songs that sounded like classic country songs, but with a modern sensibility. His covers of classic songs had that same fresh feeling, and when he was with The Flying Burrito Brothers, the group covered non-country songs like “Do Right Woman” by Aretha Franklin and “To Love Somebody” by The Bee Gees, and these songs opened up my imagination to what a country recording could sound like. It was exciting and inspired me to improve my guitar playing and write better songs.

All this to say that playing guitar and making music require passion and excitement, and these need to be rekindled on a daily basis. Gram Parsons opened up new worlds for me, and returning to his music has rekindled my excitement. What is your passion about music? I’ll help you discover it, and I’ll help you put it into your guitar playing.