I picked up the old Gibson and strummed a few chords. It was finally beginning to sound in tune. New strings always seem to take a while to adjust and acclimate to the changing temperature of a drafty old house.

The black six-string flat top with a white pickguard once belonged to my dad when he was in his early twenties. He probably serenaded my mom with it in his courtship days in the 1930s. He may have played songs like Santa Lucia and Come Back to Sorrento for all I know, but I don't. Funny, but I never saw him even touch the guitar as long as I knew him. It remained in the basement for many years until my older brother "discovered" it. He didn't have the patience to learn how to play, so I took it instead. That was about the time of The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper album. I was about twelve or thirteen and very much influenced by their music at the time.

Even today, I find myself playing such Beatles classics as And I Love Her, Things We Said Today, Here There and Everywhere, This Boy, and Here Comes the Sun. But one of my favorite songs to play is Backstreet Girl by the Rolling Stones. Of course, all the tunes are my acoustic instrumental interpretations and are likely to be musically inaccurate renditions. Also, I'm a terrible singer. But on occasion, when no one is home, I like to sing and play In the Presence of the Lord by Blind Faith. If coerced into singing in public, my safest choices would probably be San Franciscan Nights, Ring of Fire, and House of the Rising Sun. They seem to be in the proper key for me, if possible. But don't worry, I'm not going to upload any of my sorry tunes with this write-up. My daughter is the gifted musician, singer, and songwriter in the family.

A few years ago, as a joke, I recorded a CD with a few songs I sang and gave it to my daughter as a birthday present. I titled the album Who's Your Daddy? I don't think she cared much for it, but she never gave me a review. I'm not sure she even listened to it. She takes music too seriously for such nonsense. So seriously, that she auditioned for American Idol and The Voice. She didn't make the first cut in either event, but it was an exciting experience; for both of us.

She's written plenty of songs which she has recorded and posted on youtube. My favorite tune that she did is a cover of Midas Whale's Howling at the Moon. Here is a link to the video: 

https://youtu.be/cOi2GdPKlQs

You can skip the introduction if you like and jump to 1:13 into the video to hear the song.

I don't know where she got her musical talent from – not me! Maybe it was from her grandpa, after all. But I guess we'll never know for sure.

Story and Cover Illustration Copyright © 2021 by Michael DeFrancesco