You Moved Me Tonight I was just reading about how the great BB King has cancelled his tour due to exhaustion and dehydration and I really hope that he recovers well and soon. On reading this it brought to mind my meeting with the great man. Sometime around 1990 I got a call to play a song with Mick Hanly ( yes I used to actually get calls to work in Ireland) and the IRMA awards or was it Milk awards? The next day Leo Sayer phoned to see if I could do one with him too so I was thrilled to be able to play with two great guys on the same show. I cant recall the song with Mick but it may have been My Love Is in America but I played some sort of steel guitar impersonation on it and it was nice. Leo played his smash hit When I Need You and in place of the famous sax solo I did a sort of bluesy soulful guitar thing. Mick went on quite early and the first thing I noticed right below me in the front row was probably the greatest electric blues player that ever lived Mr BB King. He was in town and had been asked to present an award. Seeing him there really stopped me in my tracks and I felt very self conscious playing (even more than usual) The song went well and I calmed down a bit and a little later Leo was up. Everyone was loving his song and he is so likable that I forgot about the solo until just before it started and then all I could think about was BB King is sitting two feet from me and I have to play something bluesy but I got through it and went backstage to relax. Before long the show was over and there was an after show reception that that was suddenly really packed with all the Irish music business big shots etc and as I never know what to say to any of them I retreated to a corner of the room with some of the musos. I saw BB come into the room and he chatted to some people for a while and then inexplicably came straight over to me. His first words were you moved me tonight to which I nearly fainted and I blabbered something stupid like do you mean the bluesy solo in Leos song? He just looked at me with a crushing blank expression and I suddenly sadly realised that what I had played didnt register as blues at all. He said it was the song with Mick that had got him as he loved steel guitar and melody and something about my control of the tremelo arm etc. My confidence was on a real roller coaster within the space of a few seconds. We spoke for a while and he was really lovely and gave me one of his little Lucille guitar badges. I was on a high as the greatest bluesman of all had told me that I had moved him. There were various acts on the show and BB saw the fantastic opera singer from Cork (I wish I could remember her name) who had won an award and went over to speak to her. I was just standing there and I heard him say the same words to her You moved me tonight and he gave her a little guitar badge. He then saw another award winner from the show and I heard those now familiar words you moved me tonight and the Lucille badge thing. This may have happened a couple of more times in exactly the same way. I actually felt quite relieved in a way coupled with a kind of I bet you say that to all the girls kind of feeling and had a little laugh to myself. A while later to my great surprise he came over to me again and talked more about my gig in quite a bit of detail and then we chatted about so many things guitars, jazz, country music, all the great guitarists and he was so knowledgable and informed. This went on for close to an hour and even when his manager Mr Silverstein said it was time to go he gestured that he was happy to stay where he was for a while. He even invited me to his house in Las Vegas but as he is away 315 days of the year I think he was pretty safe from me arriving on his doorstop. Eventually he had to go and I thought to myself that was one hero Im glad I did meet and what a beautiful statesman for music. P.S. This is not meant to come across in any sort of self congratulatory way but I thought it was a funny little story.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 17:20:32 +0000
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