George Worthmore - 'Round Midnight

[ellyssian]

You know, I almost did *this* as an on-theme Friday Funny last night... George and his audience has so much fun with this. I suppose half the fun is carried on the comments page between him and his audience, though...

And for all the light-hearted nature of it, this is a seriously good solo guitar rendition of the tune-of-the-moment:

Just the right thing for a rainy Saturday morning...

Comments

round midnite

[(Anonymous)]

Dear friend,

I was playing a gig at the late Manny's Carwash, a blues bar on the upper east side of NYC in 1995. A guy from South Africa is in the audience and says he wants to bring me and my band to play at his joint in Johannesburg. He's on the level and six months later I'm there.

After three tours I buy the place and move there. . I want to run the club and make money. After living on the lower east side and playing all the local clubs, living in a one bed room apartment, I wanna see what it's like.

I pretty much stopped playing for a living after that, doing maybe one or two gigs a month

I end up with a big house on the side of a mountain overlooking a lake on a golf estate. I buy a penthouse apartment in the exclusive area of the northern suburbs of Johannesburg. I acquire BMWs, super bikes and a Harley. The nightclub wins "Best of Jo'burg" every year for ten years.

But I have to run a nightclub in the murder capitol of the world. Doing something like that changes you, I am not kidding. Eventually I'm the poster boy for "Live Fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse Association". I got hit by a car two years ago while on one of my motorbikes. My left arm gets good and broken, the bones are shattered into many pieces.

It was nature's way of saying "slow down".
'
In the months I'm recuperating the nightclub goes into the toilet, but I manage to sell it and get out with a little bit of money. Now the only thing else I know to do is play the guitar. But my left forearm is like a surfboard.

So I start on getting my left hand and wrist working again. I'm in hot baths for months, flexing the joint and I have to play many hours a day or my hand stiffens up or goes numb.

The hand's working ok again, mostly. But the ulna is permanently dislocated. You can see it protruding in the video.

The reason why playing for people looks like so much fun for me is because it is fun. I am very, very, very happy to be playing guitar again.

After not performing for almost 10 years I am a bit nervous about getting in front of an audience again, especially now that I play solo guitar. You cant hide anything.

So it was good to read the nice and positive things you had to say. I live alone, but I read it to my dog and we did a little dance around the house.

Regards,
George Worthmore
www.georgeworthmore.com