Dripping Inspiration Through Their Fingers

Time marches and with every generational shift, we give ‘it’ a new name. Today we call it ‘The Golden Era’, and twenty years ago we were calling it ‘The Psychedelic Era’.

When I was living it at the moment, I wasn’t calling it anything else but,

Mind-Blowing!

Seriously. When an endless barrage of incredible sound assaults your senses with relentless creative genius, what else could you call it?

Even the ones doing it didn’t know what to call it.

“The reflection of the world is blues, that’s where that part of the music is at. Then you got this other kind of music that’s tryin’ to come around.” — Jimi Hendrix

That’s where it all began for me. I was lucky. I had an older brother who was the living, breathing embodiment of what was going on musically. Naming it served no purpose.

Music flowed through Gerry as blood flows through the veins. It permeated every fiber of his being. Music defined him. One day, he picked up our eldest brother’s guitar, fiddled with it for a few minutes, and just started playing. That’s how I remember it, anyway.

He never took a lesson. There were no cellphones or the Internet to secretly learn discipline while no one was looking. Gerry picked up a guitar, and he played.

While he played, he listened. He took everything the music of the day was throwing at him, and then he went in search for more.

By the time I became aware of music at all, my brother was entrenched in everything from Hendrix to Dylan, and back to Floyd. He shared it all with his baby brother.

By the time I was ten, I had been introduced to Led Zeppelin, Canned Heat, Cream, The Byrds, Joplin, Ten Years After, and of course, the Beatles and Stones.

Through it all, Gerry honed his craft. Suddenly, it was as if my days were filled with personal concerts performed in the comfort of my bedroom. And, it wasn’t just the rock.

He was playing riffs from names like Mike Bloomfield, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Alvin Lee, and…Roy Clark? Yep.

We often discussed who was the greatest of them all. Was it any of those names, or was it Clapton, or Page, or was it, Santana or Hendrix? For me, they were all the greatest, but the greatest of all, of course, was my brother. Whenever my friends came over, we’d sit in a circle around him and stare in awe at the effortless skill. Sounds coming from that old acoustic six-string were astounding. My buddy Steve handed Gerry his new electric one day to try out. The reaction from our group was unanimous.

Holy Shit!!!

Then one day the music stopped.

Strange and foreboding darkness came over Gerry and enveloped his soul. Paranoia replaced joy. Anger replaced musical expression. The mood swings moved in and out of him like ominous rain clouds. For brief periods, the love of music and guitar was there, quickly vanishing whenever another internal storm moved in.

By the time I entered high school, the music in Gerry had left almost completely. At my first music class, the teacher handed me a trombone and said flatly, “This is what you will play for the next four years.” Uh…ok.

Making the best of it, I went in search of music I could relate to with my new instrument. That’s when I discovered something absolutely mind-blowing, again.

I picked an album called The Chicago Transit Authority and took it to a friend’s house to play. We sat on the couch and turned up the volume, and we waited.

The first track was aptly called Introduction because this was the band’s first record. Right from the first beat, I knew exactly what these guys were all about. The tight staccato rips from the three-piece horn section including a trombone breathed instant, exuberant life into the room. A raspy, bluesy voice came alive with a plea to give them a chance. Suddenly, and within mere bars of the same track, I was moving from rock to jazz to ballad, and back again.

Enrapture! Ok, I thought. This shit’s happening, I can do the horn thing.

But then, before the song was finished I was listening to something totally unexpected. The guitar solo went into a full, unrelenting riff. I heard myself blurting out loud, “Who the fuck is that guitar player?”

My friend just said, “Awesome, eh?”

On following tracks, distinctly rhythmic guitar lines moved the song along. The ensemble may have been fronted by horns, but the guitar lines carried almost every piece.

“Are you kidding me?’, I asked. “He sounds like Gerry!”

By the time I got to side two, I was hooked. Then this guy, Terry Kath was his name. This guy with the only guitar in the group devoted six-and-a-half minutes to a freeform riff. Unbelievable!

South California Purples and a cover of The Spencer Davis Group hit I’m A Man, turned me on my head and I was now Terry Kath’s biggest fan.

I ran home with the album to play for my brother. I was lucky. He was having one of his lucid moments. We sat together on the floor of his bedroom and listened. When Terry Kath started his guitar solo, a smile came slowly to Gerry’s face. He closed his eyes and just grooved through the rest of the record. The day carried on into more music discovery and pure joy. Nothing will ever replace that moment.

On January 23, 1978, two days before his thirty-second birthday, Terry Kath accidentally shot himself with a handgun he was cleaning and died. It was four days before Gerry’s twenty-fifth.

Ten years and almost six months later, my brother Gerry passed away at thirty-five. Cancer spread through him like the dark clouds that robbed his thoughts for nearly twenty years. It was the final insult to consume his soul.

The two greatest guitar players I ever heard were gone. Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here became my personal, living movie score. Even though the subject of Roger Waters’ lyrics are about his friend and former bandmate Syd Barrett, the narrative always makes me think of Gerry and Terry.

Sadly, I have no recordings of my brother’s music, but I do have Terry Kath’s, and Chicago’s. Thank goodness. Years later I learned that the great Jimi Hendrix himself once called Terry Kath “The best guitar player in the universe.”

He never met my brother, and neither have you. But, how Terry Kath is not on any list of top 100 Guitarists of All Time, let alone the top ten, is a complete mystery to me. Just listen to his live performance at Tanglewood in 1970, for example.

You might be wondering by now, what does this have to do with the title of my article? Well, it didn’t take very long for me to discover that neither trombone nor any other musical instrument was going to work as a personal form of expression. I went to film school instead.

It didn’t take either, but I love film.

I’ve been fortunate to have almost twice as much time on this earth as Terry Kath, or my brother. I spent thirty years denying my own expression for the sake of business endeavors. I’m not complaining about that. There are no regrets.

But, I won’t waste any more of the time I have left. Writing is the form I’ve been looking for all my life. Whether I’m good at it or not matters little.

Doing it is the only thing that matters. I enjoy throwing quotes around here and there. This one fits quite well.

“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” — Sir Edmund Hillary

While I practice my chosen art, I pull inspiration from the artists that bring me the most joy. I love Monet, Van Gough, and Van Eyck. I love Hitchcock, Ford, and Scorsese. I adore Davis, Getz, and Coltrane, Holiday, Nicks and Merchant, but most especially…

I love Terry and Gerry.

Their inspiration drips through time, leaving endless ripples on the pond of creative excellence.

This story originally appeared on Medium by Stuart Englander

I hope you enjoyed reading it.

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