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Describe the atmosphere and live music at a local pub, restaurant, festival, church or temple, club night.... inspire other people to check it out!
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Musician: Paul Henderson
Location: Kirkmichael, Scotland
Instruments: guitar
Music: Scottish folk / Blues
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HOW I CAME TO THIS MUSICÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýWHERE I PLAYÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýA FAVOURITE SONG |
  
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 ÌýÌýListen (7'58) to 'Knockin', performed and composed by Paul Henderson.
ÌýÌýListen (2'18) to Paul Henderson talk about his music
‘They could be singing about something really sad but there’s a wry humour running through it - I relate to that bittersweet balance.'
How I came to this music:
I came to music through my family. My dad was once a professional drummer. He used to take me on gigs to jam along and get experience. I took guitar lessons, and everything grew from there! My mum liked heavy rock bands like Deep Purple and Carlos Santana, and my dad was into big band and jazz, so there’s a blues element running through both of them. The more music I listened to, the more I kept coming back to Blues.
 I’ve always loved Blues – it’s just the feeling in the music. They may be singing about something really sad but there’s a wry humour running through it. There’s this bittersweet balance in the music that I just relate to.
It’s a reaction against academia during a time when I was into very technical music. I got so fed up with all the technical stuff that I started listening to Johnny "Guitar" Watson and Buddy Guy - sheer enjoyment! I went to see Guy live – his charisma and connection with the audience, seemed to cut through all the technical stuff.
Blues music comes from Africa. It was crystallised in America with the arrival of black slaves. One thing that interests me is the blues harmony – it’s a very ambiguous feeling in the music. With the European twelve tone system you don’t get a note between the major and the minor, but with some African music there are little notes in between the cracks. That’s where I think blues comes from – it’s the African way of singing.
All these different cultures came together to such a point where Blues has permeated every style in the 20th century. There’s the ragtime and early blues which spawned jazz. Take a popular song like Gerrshwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’, he took all these ambiguous blues ideas and made an incredible piece of music out of it! It’s that sound and feeling that people latched on to.
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