Musings

Randy was a seriously great German rockabilly guitarist, and was especially talented in figuring out the way that the guitar parts and the guitar tones were achieved on many of our favorite records.

I was excited to receive an advance copy of Henry Horenstein’s excellent new book of photography dedicated to the Lone Star State, Miles and Miles of Texas.

Tom drove vintage hearses and could discuss literature and history and was funny as hell; I’ll remember his cheerful laugh and big, toothy smile more than anything else.

Sonny was the last surviving member of Buddy Holly’s Crickets, and man, what a résumé he had!

We played outside St. Louis tonight at an amazing venue: Gene’s Country Club in Pevely. It’s a real old-time honky-tonk, out in the country on Indian Foot Lake.

Rust Belt cities in America are always a bit depressing, but I also find them endlessly fascinating. I’ve never had a chance to walk around Toledo before.

We passed through Wichita Falls, Texas, and I had to take a little detour to see the building where Nesman recording studios used to be, back in the day. The Sprague Brothers were the first ones to tell me about Nesman Studios.

Ron was a freewheeling bachelor who loved women and cars and planes and having a good time. He wasn’t particularly interested in all the serious, “settling down” nonsense that all the churchgoing people we knew were so concerned with.

I spent the afternoon with Thomas Hartel, whose father, Al Hartel, made the famous “Surfrite” surfboard Guitars for Mosrite in the 1960s. Thomas contacted me recently after seeing a video I shot at Norman’s Rare Guitars.

Yesterday I drove up to Ridgecrest, on the edge of China Lake (where the Navy has their Naval Air Weapons Station), close to Death Valley. You don’t accidentally go to Ridgecrest. It’s a town on the edge of nowhere out in the hot California desert.