Guitar Today

Every so often at Guitar Today, I get the chance to meet someone who has seen and done it all. Such has been the case in meeting Woody Bridges, from  http://www.guitarlessonsonvideo.com Guitar Lessons from a true professional. Woody shared some stories with me that I thought you might enjoy

How I learned to play the Guitar
by Woody Bridges

I got my first guitar when I was nine years old. My mother ordered it from Sears catolog. It was a Gene Arutry guitar. (I still have it)
I thought at the time I could just pick it up a play it.  I could sing complete songs at the age of five, all I had to do was listen to the song and open my mouth and sing.  I thought the guitar would be the same way. Boy was I wrong. So I put the guitar in the closet and forgot about that little project.  Then about a year later I decided that if I wanted to learn to play I would have to get some books and actually try to learn.  Then I remembered that my mother’s mom and dad both had played the guitar in their earlier days.  So I started going to their house and they start showing me how to tune and some chords. (and how to play to timing)
Well by the time I was 18 I could play pretty good I thought.  I went off to the University of Texas to study Electrical Engineering. I stayed at a bording house that had 21 other boys living there. There were 3 other boys there that played guitar. They knew things I didn’t know, so I started picking up things from them. I stayed in college for 2 years and got married and went to work in Port Arthur Texas at the Texaco plant. There I met some more guys that played the guitar. So we would get together and play.
Then I went to a lounge where one of the guys was playing and sat in and sang some song. One thing lead to another and a guy named Murphy McDowell called me and ask if I would go to work in his band as a singer.  So I did and that was the start of my career as a musician.  A lot has happened since that time. I am a reborn Christian and I’m still married to the same girl. (been 52 years) and I can still sing and play.

THE MAKING OF A STAR
by Woody Bridges

Back in the 60’s, Grace and I had our own band. We were playing 6 nights a week all over the gulf coast of Texas.  We had three girls in the band. Grace, Billie Jo Moore and Betty Spears.
This was in the same time frame when we were working with Jack Rhodes.(song writer of Silver Threads and golden needles). Grace and I were going up to Jack’s place every chance we had.  One day Billie Jo asked if she could go with us. So we took her up to see Jack. We let her audition for Jack and he liked what he heard. After a few months of working on songs, Jack took her to Nashville and introduced her to Ken Nelson.(the head of Capitol Records in Nashville)  This is the same time Jack took Peggy Little to Nashville.  Both of them got contracts.
Billie Jo has more or less retired and is living back in Vidor, Texas.  The last I heard of Peggy was she had started doing gospel songs according to Barbra (whose late husband wrote “please Release me”. Barbra is now married to my friend Bob McCormmick.
Life moves on.

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