On February 7, 2003, I interviewed Vandalia businessman and musician, Ed Taylor, Jr., at his shop, The Noise Store, on Dallas Street. Ed sells musical instruments and Radio Shack products and gives music lessons, a lot of lessons. This is his story
Vagabond: Did starting to write songs change the kind of music that you’re interested in? You said you were into rock and roll then and the stuff that you were playing the other night didn’t sound very much like rock and roll.
I think it had to do with getting in touch with who the real me was. For years I was trying to be this and trying to be that and I guess, in essence, trying to be somebody that I really wasn’t. Trying to act like the way other people wanted me to act or be. All of a sudden the music comes along and the music is not anything like what I’d played or been involved in prior to that. I got frustrated because I wanted to play rock and roll. I loved playing rock and roll and I wanted to write rock and roll songs but when I tried to write a rock and roll song it just came out crap.
Then when I sat down, like you said in your book take the time and sit still and listen, something comes out and something comes along that can be quite remarkable. I really struggled with that for the first couple years I wrote. I’d get so frustrated because I really wanted to write a dynamite rock and roll song and nothing just came out of that.
Finally part of me said, it doesn’t matter. This is a gift, it’s not yours, it’s something you’re supposed to share and whatever it is just do it. At that point I began to realize what a really small world I had lived in all these years. I played just one thing with this gift in this town and I began to think, I began to allow myself to like other types of music that I had never really paid much attention to before. So I started learning other types of songs and writing other songs and doing this and that, playing out in public and stuff like that.
To be continued....
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