Lead Guitar - Yeah Right.

I've been playing with two different groups of friends.  I hate to say "bands".  I think of them more as an assembly of people who play.  The term "band" implies something rigid and formal.  Rigidity and fformality has never been one of my strong points.   I digress. 

So anyway.  I've been playing with my friend Ernie, who has been getting together with a couple of buddies in the Fort,  Claude and Gary.   These two guys are quite skilled players and Claude has a couple of songs that get radio play in the mealtimes - so I'm told.   Gary plays bass, very well I might say, and I've heard him play a mean country electric guitar.   He says he used to play professionally, and I have no doubts about that.   Ernie asked me to come play with them, basically help with rhythm guitar.   These guys play country music, and my style helps folk it up a bit.   So we've been 'practicing' for a country jam on Sunday.  Today is Saturday.   Last night we practised the planned set and it was sounding pretty good.   I was just happy they figured I was good enough to let me play with them.

Well, this morning I got an email from Ernie.  Claude has bailed.  He wasn't sounding too good when we played on Thursday - he's been suffering from flu bug or something.   That wasn't the surprise in the email.   The surprise was that Ernie asked me to play lead guitar, which I don't do, and what I do do, I call it "Jimmy's Fake Lead Guitar".   I don't have a lot of tricks in my bag.     Read my profile.  I don't consider myself to be an accomplished musician.    

The other note in the email "we are jammin' at 1 today if you can make it".  Well, I'm already scheduled to jam with Don and Brian today at 1, and I don't have to play lead.

The Sunday song set.   Big City Turn Me Loose (A Merle Haggard Song).  Long Black Veil (written by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin in 1959), and  Billy Currington's last big hit - People are Crazy.   First two songs are fairly easy to play - 3 chords in Key of E.   People are crazy is a bit more challenging, but only with the middle bridge and hitting the pauses and such correctly.   I've been playing all three at home, so I'm not too worried, but without practicing with Ernie today, Sunday could be interesting. 

As any good guitar player would say "Stay tuned".