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BiTS: Ah, that sounds good. That's the way people get enthusiastic about music. Did

you ever have any guitar lessons or are you entirely self-taught?

GG: I'm not entirely self-taught, but I found that I don't do well with lessons. I find
it hard to practise what people tell me I have to practise. I had a few when I was

probably 15 or 16. I went to some evening classes where I learned to fingerpick on
acoustic guitar, and that’s kind of stuck with me, really.

BiTS: I guess from what you’ve said, you started off playing with a plectrum?

GG: No, thumb picking - fingers.

BiTS: Oh, really? That's interesting.

GG: That's what I've always done.

BiTS: When I first started to play the guitar, I played with the flatpick and, to be
honest with you, it held me up for years because I couldn't understand how people
were doing things like, I was listening to Big Bill Broonzy and whatever, with rhythm

and melody at the same time, and that kind of stuff.

GG: Yes, even now, whatever I'm playing acoustic or electric, I use a thumb pick and
my fingers.

BiTS: Really?

GG: Yes.

BiTS: And what kind of music were you

listening to when you were growing up?
You said something about The Beatles, but
there must have been more than that.

GG: Yeah, we got given, when I was, I can't
remember how old, but we got given a
second hand Dansette record player which

had one album, one LP, which was “The
Eddie Cochran Memorial Album”.

BiTS: Oh, wow!

GG: So we listened to that over and over
and over again. And had a whole bunch of
singles, Neil Sedaka, Johnny Tillotson,

some Elvis Presley, Johnny and the Hurricanes, who I still like to this day.

BiTS: Yes, who doesn't? Absolutely fabulous band. And did you try and play some of
their stuff? Is that what you started off doing?

GG: No, I started, I don't know how, but I started learning some kind of folk songs. I
had this idea that eventually I'd become a world travelled folk singer, but that never
happened either. But then I used to listen to the radio, obviously influenced by my