Django Reinhardt - Django In Rome 1949/50 CD/C
I had to root through iTunes in order to find this particular album. That same day that my dad came home with that record player, he’d brought the Shadows for me and Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli in the Hot Club de France for him and my mum. That was the music that they listened to and danced to before and during the Second World War. This was what would be on when they went up to London and went to a dance club. So, apart from being something that was very listenable to them – not to me when I first heard it, but to them – there was this incredible guitar player who has been touted as the best guitar player ever. I sort of put him up there myself… So anyway, we were all very excited to have a record player and I would put on The Shadows and when I finished listening to that I would go up to my room and practice playing The Shadows and my parents would put on Django Reinhardt. I couldn’t get out of the room quick enough! This was old peoples’ music. Which is exactly what my children thought when they were younger. When I would put it on they would say “dad’s listening to that silent movie music again”. It’s just distasteful to the young I guess. But anyway, each time they would put it on, I would get out of the door slower and slower because I’d begun to listen to the guitar playing. It was acoustic and at the time I had been wanting to listen to electric. So then I would listen to The Shadows and stay for the Django Reinhardt because one day the penny dropped: holy crap this guy was amazing. He and Hank Marvin have been there since I started playing and have always been there. I’ve listened to every guitarist under the sun since obviously, but I even listened to a track from each of them this morning! They both, in their way, are responsible for my style in the end I think, for giving me the direction I wanted to go.