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it. [Chuckling] That’s the worse thing you can say to any kid and when I started, sorry no, I

interrupted you, Ian. Go on, please.
BiTS: No, go on, continue.
GS: Well eventually,
within a year or so, my
mum realised that I was
doing something with the

guitar and my brother
wasn’t, actually. A
popular song at the time,
probably before your
time, was the Platters,
‘Smoke Gets in Your

Eyes’.
BiTS: I remember that.
GS: I didn’t know what to
do with the guitar and
that included tuning. I
didn’t even think there

was something called
‘tuning’. The Platters,
lovely song, da da da da
da da da da da da da da,
so what I did I tuned the top four strings to that and then the bottom two I tuned them so that they

fitted in with the first four strings. I started playing songs on that. I started doing early Buddy Holly
songs and stuff and then I discovered something called pitch pipes, which changed the tuning
altogether, and I was also able to get, it was actually a book of blues songs from the local library and
it had chord charts. Even though I had to relearn how to play the guitar, I had some idea and it was
really much later that I realised that that original way I tuned the guitar was an open tuning, was an
Open E or something.
BiTS: Yes, yes.

GS: And I’ve loved it ever since. Ever since.
BiTS: How did you get attracted to the blues then?
GS: At the time when we still had
forces overseas, there was a
programme at 12 o’clock on a

Sunday midday, Forces Favourites,
and people used to write postcards
in and request songs for either
someone who was stationed abroad,
or from someone stationed abroad
for someone at home. There was
this particular day I was listening to

it and there was this lady said
something, whoever was
introducing it, said something and