Brandon B.

Brandon is a guitarist of 11+ years from Shreveport-Bossier, Louisiana. Born on January 22, 1987, I was captivated by music that had soul, rhythm and melody. Although I grew up singing along at the top of my lungs to artists such as Boyz II Men (cassette tapes!), I didn’t pick up the guitar and really dig into music until age 17.

I think it’s safe to say that everyone loves a guitar. I couldn’t NOT pick up a guitar lying around someone’s house that I was visiting. Even though I didn’t know a thing about the instrument, it didn’t stop me from picking it up and strumming a make-believe chord. At age 17, I had about $100 left over from working with my grandfather’s home remodeling business. I left school early (at 17) and wasn’t doing much other than that. Since leaving school, my social life was fading. What do I do? I spontaneously decided to buy a black Jay Turser acoustic guitar for $100 from “Little Drummer Boy”, a local music store in Shreveport.

My initial goal was to learn to strum some of my favorite songs by some of my favorite artists. My flavor of choice? Edwin McCain, Hootie & The Blowfish, etc. It was soon after I had purchased a Mel Bay chord book and was learning some of these favorite songs when I heard Stevie Ray Vaughan live from his Montreux Jazz Festival performances (1982 and 1985). This unbelievable style of playing led me to further examine the other pioneers that I knew of such as Jimi Hendrix, BB King, Eric Clapton and so on. I was already interested in the blues before this, but hearing Stevie’s monster playing really pushed me. I had to get better, if it was the last thing I ever did.

So there I am, practicing day and night. From becoming frustrated at one moment, and then rewarded another moment. I bugged my best friend’s older brother with questions (a guitar player who lived down the street from me in the rural area of Ivan, LA). I wanted to know WHY it works, “how do I do this?”, “how did you do that?” I had some chords down, but I needed to know how all this lead playing worked, barre chords, etc. Knowing what I had already taught myself, I found Jerry Beach of Shreveport, LA (Louisiana music hall of famer) who wrote the hit song “I’ll Play The Blues For You” made famous by Albert King. After I became intrigued, I began taking lessons from him. Jerry was a great mentor to me and helped launch me to where I needed to go.