What a wonderful piece of technology the MP3 player is. You can take you music with you were ever you go and what ever you do. I always take mine to the gym and listen to all my favorite bands while I workout. It relaxes me and blocks out distraction and lets me concentrate on my workout. I don't know how I lived so long without it.
But with that in mind, let us not forget about the local musicians and particular the bass players who are out there in your community making music. Just about every community, no matter where you live, has live music being played somewhere. When I am not making music myself, which doesn't happen very often any more, I make it point to go out and listen to the local musicians in my area. I tend to operate on the premise that if I can't go out and listen to a band, I don't go out. I am not particular about the genre of the music; I just like to listen to live music.
With that said, let me introduce you to Jim Groth. Jim is a local musician here in my little corner of the world. Jim is quite a busy man, during the week he teaches Indian study's classes at one of the local high school. On the weekends he plays music. He plays with a blues band called The Stallions (I should join that group; my wife tells me I am quite a stallion ((yah, right Allen)). They practice on Thursday night at Jims place; they call it their bowling night and play live on selected weekend. On weekend when they are not playing, Jim has a single act where he plays and sings the blues, featuring standards and songs he has written.
My daughter and I and listened to him play and sing at the grand opening at a local health food store recently and recorded some video of Jims single act. Below are the videos, the first up is Jim on acoustic guitar, performing “Here Comes the Sun” from the Beatles 1969 album “ Abby Road”, written by George Harrison. The second video is Jim on electric guitar performing “Milk Cow Blues”, written by James Arnold in the 1930’s and later covered by Bob Wills, Elvis Presley and Will Nelson.
