Re: Little Lanelei, was Danelectro Spring King Reverb

["mark wilson" <markwilson53@xxxxxxx>]

I just got back from a long road trip up the California Coast which took me
from San Diego to San Francisco.  I'd pull into a new town each afternoon,
check into a hotel, pull out my harps, and head downtown looking for people
to jam with.  You can almost always find street performers in downtown
areas.  I got lucky and hooked up several times and had some real memorable
experiences.

My most positive experience was in Ventura.  I hooked up with a homeless guy
in a park downtown. He was an excellent guitar player and singer and I
jammed with him and several of his friends for more than two hours.  We were
very near the railroad tracks and a place that used to be called hobo jungle
where some of them slept and needless to say I met some very interesting and
colorful people.

The next day I pulled into Pismo Beach a small beach town a couple hours up
the coast from Ventura.  Got a room, went out and did the town for a while
then went looking for some musical company.   On a little boardwalk area on
the beach there were a couple of guys singing and playing guitars.  One
acoustic and another playing electric through a small Pignose.  I asked if I
could join in and as usual there were very cool about it and brought me
right in.  I pulled out my harps and tried to jump in but for some reason I
could not figure out what key they were in.  They told me they were in E so
I tried my A harp first which didn't work. Then I went through all the harps
I had with me, A,Bb,C,D,F,G, and none of them sounded right.  I thought no
problem, I'll try the next song.  Problem was the exact thing happened again
and again.  I could not get in tune with these guys no matter what and had
to eventually put my harps away and listen in.

Now I'm trying to figure out why it happened as I don't want to go through
that again if I can help it.  It seemed to me that they really were not sure
what key they were in most of the time.  Every time I asked he said E and
once he said E7.  Is it possible that their guitars were so far out of  tune
that I had no way of making it work or is it more likely they were playing
in some unusual key and I just didn't have the right harp.  The first
scenario seems more likely to me as they were playing all types of songs
from Willie Nelson to Tom Petty.  Just thought I'd run this by the group as
this has never happened to me before and I thought you guys would be able to
figure it out.

Mark Wilson
Irvine Ca