I dont know how many of you remember the Ace Nash Music Store on Lackland Road, close to the intersection of West Milton. One of the things my father came to appreciate while in Hawaii after the war was Hawaiian music played on the steel guitar. Out of all the kids, I was chosen to try my hand at steel guitar lessons, and Ace Nash was where I found out I had a degree of musical aptitude. My first instructor was Dewitt Scott, a legend in steel guitar circles. He later broke away from Ace Nash and started his own business, Scottys Music on Midland Blvd, which is still there. I was about 11 when I started, a year later I entered the Mid America Music Association Festival, a city wide competition. I remember a lot of people being there and a suffocating case of stage fright. After several steel guitarists had performed, no one garnered any more than polite applause - after all, you couldnt really expect parents to raise the roof for someone elses kid, there were trophies on the line. I went on stage to set up, and noticed right then that the man himself, Ace Nash, was sitting in the front row. Convinced that I was going to forget the two songs I was playing from memory, I launched into my first selection, Beyond the Reef. It received the standard polite applause. I went immediately into my next song, SleepWalk. When I finished, before the crowd was able to coolly dismiss this effort, Ace Nash stood up and said, this young man gave a terrific performance, and I want to hear some applause for what he just did. I never heard so much reluctant clapping in my life, but to my dads enormous satisfaction I pulled it off, which surprised the hell out of me. To celebrate we went to A&W Root Beer on Page and loaded up on hamburgers, of course bringing home the gallon glass jug of root beer. So for your listening pleasure I put on a music video of the song that brought them to their feet at the 1965 M.A.M.A. Music Festival.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 06:02:54 +0000
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