The Trip to Sonic Ranch

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Finally Learning How to Play

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By this time I'd been thumping along for a few years now and had played in a small variety of bands. Then along came Simba What can I say about Simba.  His name is actually Humphrey.  He called himself Simba because it suited him better.  He was raised in Kenya and schooled in English schools -- highly educated and spoke English far better than almost everyone in Idaho.  A genuinely beautiful man with his lanky, Jimmy Hendrix-ish frame, rich coffee colored skin, perfect ball-shaped afro and an impeccably trimmed beard after the Greek fashion that came to a flat point an inch below his chin.  When Simba first looked at you, you were sure you were the only human in the world that mattered to him at that moment.  Quite a presence. Paul introduced me to Simba, who was looking for a bassist.  At the time I only had the big blue acoustic, so that's what we went with.  Just me, Simba playing guitar, and Paul on the mandolin at first.  It took ...
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Colby

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The first time I met Colby Acuff was in the lobby of the Beta house in Moscow. It turns out that we both attended the same frat 34 years apart. At the time I was recently retired from my software career, and had been conscripted by the corporation that held the physical house as Treasurer.  It was fall 2018 and our memories seem to diverge on this story. Here’s mine: I was in the lobby overseeing some kind of plumbing thing in the house when this tall skinny kid walks up and says:  “I hear you play bass”.  And I said something flippant like:  “Yeah, who the hell are you?”  Then he holds out his hand and says:  “I’m Colby Acuff and I play country music.”   An auspicious beginning, but this has happened to me a number of times. Evidently bass players are hard to come by. So we agreed to meet up at my house to see if we could come up with a sound we liked together. Now this is funny. I’m 34 years older than this kid, and that doesn’t seem to bother him a...
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Music Adventure Intro

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‘Bout time for another adventure, wouldn’t you say? This one has a lot longer time scope than my previous adventures. So Ima have to back way up in time to get you up to speed.  Where to start? Mom and dad sat next to each in the band at North Bend High School in North Bend Oregon. I have no pictures of this. Wish I did. Pretty sure mom played an old silver baritone and dad played a cornet but that would make one or the other of them last seat. I’ll ask.  I am the youngest of four siblings and all were encouraged in music and allowed to choose their instruments, and I think there is an innate, if not enforced selection of a different instrument for each child. The eldest, Jeff played a beautiful silver trumpet. Sister Barb played a tenor saxophone. Brother Chris played trombone. Arriving last, I really had little choice, and was forced to pick up mom’s old silver Baritone. It wasn’t all that bad. It was narrower in diameter than the modern horns of the tim...
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