Page 28 - BiTS_11_NOVEMBER_2021

senior year in high school. There was a club called “Shaboo” not far from our house and many
national acts played there. I used to go there and hear B.B. King, Elvin Bishop, James Montgomery
and James Cotton on a regular basis. Many folk artists played there as well, and I always attended
Jonathan Edwards’ shows.

LL: You started playing piano at 5 years old! That’s very young to start a practice discipline!
What motivated 5-year-old Patty?

PT: Having a piano in the house made it easy to start learning the piano. I would have liked to

learn boogie-woogie which my mother would play,
but no one taught that style at the time that I
knew of. My mother would let me watch her play
and I picked up some boogie blues songs, but she
never formally taught me how to play that style.

LL: Do you have any formal music training?

PT: Aside from my piano lessons, I am mostly self-
taught, playing by ear. I had one semester of
classical guitar in college, and I remember

learning ‘Greensleeves’. When I started going to
blues jams and open mics, many of my guitarist
friends helped me along by showing me different
voicings of chords on the guitar. I fell in love with
9th chords as they are so rich sounding in a song.

LL: You took up the guitar at age 17. What
motivated that?

PT: Believe it or not, two bands made me want to
learn guitar. CSNY because they had beautiful
harmonies accompanied by acoustic guitar. I was
able to practice these on my best friend’s acoustic Nancy and Ann Wilson (Heart)
guitar. She had learned to fingerpick and showed
me the basics. From there I started to study
‘Heart’ songs because Ann and Nancy Wilson
legitimised woman’s rock music for me. I go to
their concerts to this day, and they are always an

inspiration to me.

LL: When did you realize you could sing?

PT: Well, I always could sing, and I had good pitch ever since I can remember, but I sang plainly
and was self-conscious about my singing voice. I have sung songs to the car radio my whole life
and when I started going to the blues jams, I broke away from singing folky songs that were
acoustic based. I started belting songs out like Koko Taylor, Etta James, Bonnie Raitt and Janis
Joplin. I had always like singing ‘Heart’ songs, but Ann Wilson’s range is a bit higher than mine, so I

didn’t share my passion for them in my performances except in my own living room. It was quite
freeing to perform these emotionally charged blues tunes as opposed to singing Joni Mitchell or
Crosby, Stills and Nash.