by Paul Merry | Dec 11, 2017 | blogs, stories |
America’s Gift’s index – A, B and C. In case you think America’s Gift is a stodgy old history book, the eBook version has been described as a lightening read, a bit like the Matrix, I’m told. At 11 inches by eight and a half inches and an inch...
by Paul Merry | Oct 15, 2017 | blogs, stories |
How English convicts from Australia terrorised Gold Rush San Francisco and California. By Paul Merry It’s been two months since my last post, so let me apologise. My excuse is: I’m busy making a film about how English convicts from Australia ran riot in...
by Paul Merry | Aug 16, 2017 | blogs, stories |
My second last post (a great title for a mournful bugle solo, eh?), promised to tell you about the American guitarist, Helen Louise Ferera, who had a hit with ‘Palakiko Blues’, exactly a century ago, in 1917. The track, a Hawaiian guitar duet with Helen Louise’s...
by Paul Merry | Aug 4, 2017 | blogs, stories |
Every now and again, bands or individuals come along who, you feel, have that special something. The Nashville-based blues-rock band, The Bloody Nerve, is one such act, seemingly on the cusp of a deserved breakthrough, but more about them in later posts. Another...
by Paul Merry | Jun 30, 2017 | blogs, stories |
Nobody knows for sure when slide-guitar playing first slid silkily onto the world’s music scene. The 26-year-old Kentucky blues guitarist, Sylvester Weaver, was first to record slide-guitar blues, as we know it today, using a knife, in New York City, in November...
by Paul Merry | Apr 20, 2017 | blogs, stories, Uncategorized |
UPDATED November 23 2017 The difference between rock ‘n’ roll and rock & roll (or rock and roll)? For a long time now, it’s been fashionable to describe great rock music as rock & roll. But have you ever wondered when this second era of rock...
