The Guitarist
Coming
soon,
The
Guitarist
is
a
story
that
begins
among
the
random
fortunes
of
war
and
concludes
in
a
world-famous
music
school
and
jazz
festival.
Although
I’ve
played
guitar
in
groups
and
bands,
taught
the
instrument
and
music
to
young
people
and
currently
teach
my
grandson
to
play,
this
novel
is
not
the
story
of my life.
I
tell
the
tale
largely
through
the
eyes,
the
life
and
loves
of
Warwick
James.
An
unassuming
ordinary
lad
with
no
formal
musical
training,
he
was
orphaned
when
a
Luftwaffe
weather
plane
was
shot
down
over
South
Wales
one
Sunday
morning.
Out
of
a
clear
sky
the
wreckage
of
this
aircraft
crashed
through
the
roof
of
his
home
where
his
mother
and
her
lodger
were
wrapped in post-coital bliss.
From
that
modest
start
I
tell
the
story
of
the
people
who
grew
popular
music
from
its
inauspicious
beginnings
as
the
background
to
sexual
entertainment
and
folk
culture
to
the
huge,
over-
arching
industry
it
is
today.
Sadly
it’s
not
entirely
a
honourable
or
decent
tale.
Often
it’s
involved
with
the
less
attractive
aspects
of
people’s
lives,
racism,
corruption,
drugs
and
other
illegal
actvities.
Despite
this
it
provides
a
soundtrack
to
almost
everything
we
do today.
This
is
not
a
dry
history
of
music
for
had
it
not
been
for
the
invention
of
records
and
recording,
music
would
still
be
mainly
the
preserve
of
the
wealthy
and
privileged.
Records
took
music
to
the
world.
While
it
made
a
few
people
very
wealthy,
others
barely
scraped
a
living
fulfilling
the
dreams
and
desires
of
ordinary
people.
From
the
birth
of
jazz
in
the
bordellos
of
the
Old
South
through
Country
and
Western,
Rock
and
Roll,
Soul,
the
Brit
invasion
eventually
to
the
complexities
of
late
20th
century
popular
music,
Warwick
James
and
people
like
him
added
an
extra
dimension
to
people’s
lives.
Yet
the
economics
of
the
recording
industry
meant
that
most
popular
music
was
actually
recorded
by
the
same
two
or
three
dozen
musicians
who
remained
un-named and un-publicised.
By
luck
and
innate
talent,
Warwick
James
became
one
of
those
musicians,
groups
of
whom
existed
where
the
largest
recording
companies
had
their
studios.
The
musicians’
value
lay
in
their
ability
to
play
with
little
or
no
rehearsal
in
whatever
style
or
idiom
whatever
music
the
producers
needed.
That
meant
the
recording
industry
was
efficient
and
profitable
but
reduced
the
groups
and
bands
behind
the
‘name’
singers
to
mere
props,
required
only
to
mime
in
the
TV
studios and have their photographs taken for the album covers.
Of
course
like
all
art
based
on
technology
that
couldn’t
last.
Once
again
economics
demanded
that
the
‘name’
artistes
and
bands
perform
in
ever-larger
venues
and
stadiums
where
it
became
increasingly
difficult
for
talented
musicians
to
cover
for
the
‘names’.
Later
in
his
life
and
like
many
musicians
who
grew
up
and
matured
in
the
golden
age
of
recording,
Warwick
takes
the
opportunity
to
work
exclusively
with
a
supremely
talented
jazz
pianist
and
singer,
Eva
Cantrell.
Through
Eva
he
becomes
involved
in
a
new
European
Jazz
Foundation,
and
a
prestigious
music
festival. And there Warwick gets the biggest surprise of his life, as my readers will discover.
