Yesterday, I got news that one of our friends had passed away. His name is Keith Pyles. Keith and I were never good friends. He was more of a good acquaintance. More importantly, he was part of "our" group of friends. I knew him mostly from parties and jamming with the guy on a few occasions. He even "gave" Grasshopper his nickname one night at an open-mic jam night.
What I really remember about him is that he was one bad-ass blues guitar player. Keith was the kind of guy that would go play a gig on some given night and not promote it, so nobody would be there but a few of us. Yet, he would start playing and would literally draw people in off the street. That's how good he was.
And it wasn't that he was just technically proficient at playing the blues, it was more than that. He had charisma with his guitar. I don't think many people have that. I know that I don't, and never will.
But Keith had a long and hard fight with drugs and booze. It was always disheartening to me that he couldn't leave them long enough to really launch a music career. I'd heard he tried to get off of them and had cleaned up a bit, but that health problems ensued.
Yesterday, Hopper called me to let me know he had passed away back in his hometown in Georgia.
I still have Keith's CD and jam on it regularly. We'll miss ya, man, but it was good knowing you!
1 comment:
Keith will be missed.
He was, as you rightly said, a charismatic musician.
And aye, he did indeed name me GrassHopper. If I remember correctly it happended at the Peppermill Lounge off of Lancaster,in Fort Worth, Texas. I was of course too damn young to be in the bar in the first place - hehe, Keith invited me on stage to play harmonica, with some such verbage as "Ohhhhh Gentle GrassHopper, come snatch this Harmonica From My Hand". The name stuck immediately with our motley crew. And that was the 1st time I had ever been on-stage, if we can call the stage at the Mill a real stage lol. I will always remember him as a passionate musician.
Keith I know that you are finally at peace.
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