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The McCarty Experience - the night that changed everything

Through the years, I’ve spent most of my time in the company of folks who’ve dedicated their lives to music. Considering the impracticalities of music as a career, I’ve thought it interesting to  note  where and how their deep dedication began and  took root. For some it was the discovery of an inborn talent that simply couldn’t be stopped. Others grew up in a family environment that encouraged the pursuit of music. For some it came out of having a great and inspiring music teacher. As it was in my case, some have a “lightning bolt” concert going experience so moving and profound as to become a clear dividing point in life, where everything that came after was different than what came before.

The inner world of my childhood revolved around science and machinery. Telescopes and microscopes were the things of value and nothing could have been finer than spending an afternoon disassembling a wristwatch to see why it worked. The notion of becoming a musician never even crossed my mind until age 15 when a buddy introduced me to a few easy chords on his Stella acoustic. As a very part-time hobby, my progress was an unexpected delight, and a great way to gain some inroads into closely knit high school peer groups. Still, the idea of becoming a musician continued to feel foreign to this basically shy and introverted young science tinkerer.

It was pure happenstance in October, 1967, that found me squatting on a gym floor in Bridgewater, Virginia, twenty feet from a bandstand set up for a current pop radio band to come out and do their stuff. I was eager to see what I might learn from their guitar man, and just as ready to kick him to the curb after the show, in typical macho teen peer group fashion. The learning part was to be, but kicking him to the curb was, well ... let’s read on.

The concert commenced and a whiz kid from Detroit, named Jimmy McCarty, armed with his Gibson Byrdland hollow body, cranked out two hours of nothing less than the most dazzling array of absolute miracles I would ever see. The depth and level of my complete astonishment is something I will never be able to explain. In those two hours I was summoned before the high magistrate of life and spirit and given my orders. From this day forward, nothing less than a life devoted to guitar would be acceptable, irrespective of the success or consequence.

The profound mystery and majesty of gift and talent I witnessed in Mr. McCarty has remained with me until this day. On a few concert occasions, the magic has been revisited, but never to the extent I experienced in October of 1967. I later learned that McCarty had this effect on a lot of other folks, some of whom went on to higher acclaim than the man who inspired them. I’ve also found web sites whose authors go on about trying to describe their own “McCarty” experience.

As McCarty unleashed his stardust on the audience, the air between his guitar and amp seemed positively alive in a kind of sonic holograph as he twisted and turned his body in relationship to the sound emanating from the amplifier, artfully directing the returning sound wave back into the guitar to make notes that would growl, buzz, or howl at just the right moment in the song. With another twist of the guitar in the sound field,  he’d have low chord clusters that would bubble and effervesce with the tonal complexity of a four piece cello section. His right hand did double duty as it constantly danced across every knob and switch on the face of the instrument to coax more and more variation and expression over the timbre, attack and evolving sustain of each note. When the right hand wasn’t playing a string or turning a control knob, he’d lock a note into feedback sustain and make a quick stretch up to the headstock for a tuning touch up. Key points in a song were punctuated with unique effects, such as conjuring up a glockenspiel with a strum on the short span of string above the nut or behind the bridge. Then a quick twist of the guitar body toward the amp morphed the timbre into a complex swirl of singing tonal colors. His range of musical expression spanned from sweet, tender beauty to powerhouse ferocity, quite a thing to see and hear.

As the night went on, the depth of my complete astonishment grew beyond comprehension or explanation. There’s an old joke that defines talent as being smart enough to do something, and dumb enough to think it’s really important. Becoming a guitarist suddenly seemed very important. From that moment on, guitar was no longer a passive hobby. I was ravenous to play and learn.

For the aspiring guitar players in the audience that night, McCarty squashed our egos into a bucket of broken wings and abandoned audacity. The top gun of our local guitar tribe was a street tough hot shot with an attitude that could blister the neck of a New York cabbie. Midway through the concert I caught a glimpse of him sitting in the audience, wiping tears from reddened eyes. Just as much as McCarty crushed our teen guitar egos, we’d just witnessed all that one would need to know for becoming a highly accomplished musician. We left the scene as much empowered as we were devastated. In the years since, I’ve learned of a few highly acclaimed guitar celebrities who got their early inspiration with the same “Jim McCarty experience” I had that night. They too speak of him like he has no equal.

Here’s a quote from a McCarty fan web blog: “Jim McCarty is simply one of the top ten guitar players of all time, arguably top five. Sure, you have Hendrix, Clapton, then Gallagher, Page, Duane Allman and let's face it, there's really only Jimi Hendrix, then there's everybody else. Jim McCarty is virtually without peer then or now. He continues to play in the Detroit area. People, if you ever have a chance in the metro area to take in one of the all time greats, do so. Top ten, arguably top five or six. Jim McCarty.  The fire and brimstone that scorch the earth when Jimmy McCarty plays...well, he deserves better than such a paltry 'compliment' as his fellow Detroiter paid him. Jim is one of the all time greatest. All hail Jim McCarty!”

Whether it was luck, fate, or divine intervention  redefining my life goals that night, we’ll never know. Nonetheless, here I am, forty plus years later with an album of songs that ultimately grew out of that dramatic event. While you won’t hear the feats of magic and genius on the McCarty level, I hope you will catch a glimpse of the spirit that inspired it.

Deeper questions arising from the whole experience have remained an ongoing fascination. Where does profound talent come from? How can it have such a powerful impact and reach so deeply into the hearts of listeners? For all of us, a simpler question might be, “Can I participate?” Let’s not think that we can all be Jimmy McCarty, Frederic Chopin, Leonard Bernstein, or Paul McCartney. I would encourage any aspiring musician to be realistic about who he or she is. Dreaming beyond one’s gifts and abilities is reasonable. But dreaming too far above one’s gift is a good prescription for a personality that centers around anger, frustration and misdirected blame, which work against the beauty and magic of our gift. But the answer to the earlier question is yes, we can participate. And, so I do, and Once Upon A Guitar is just that.