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Artists:Tom Doughty
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by Tom Doughty
Hey Whole-wheat.. but why whole wheat, probably because it’s healthier than I am !
I digress, I’ve got my own site www.tomdoughty.com that’s well established and I’ve got a myspace site as well at www.myspace.com/tomdoughty and should you choose to Google me, maybe you’ll be lucky enough find my toad sexing technique and hedgehog pie recipes.
First though, who and what am I? Good question…… so here goes. I’m an acoustic lap slide player and singer and I'm modest enough to say I have a unique “developing style” and since it’s still developing, it keeps fresh - I'm the only one playing like me and that is for sure - if you carry on reading you will find out just why!.
I have just turned fifty, so I’m already out of the young and pretty brigade that seems to be a credential for making music – which, as its something we listen to is a bit of a strange analogy. I live with a mongrel dog called Frank who comes from Eire, so he brings me a Celtic influence from across the water.
Music is what I do, most days anyway. I gig, record, teach a bit, enjoy session work, jam, compose, try to write lyrics and sometimes succeed. I'm influenced by everything but mostly acoustic blues, American Standards like Joplin, Cole Porter, Gershwin, Rock, Folk, Jazz, Indian, Classical, Latin American, Cuban and African. OK so you have noticed I'm not that keen on Country much although I like Somerset. But, I do like Alison Kraus and Gillian Welch, I can’t pretend to dig Opera but most other stuff can grab me - isn’t that what music is supposed to do? My father used to make me listen to Jim Reeves, Beethoven, Baez and even Woody Guthrie which made for a varied cross section!
So, it’s in me, the music is there.
When I was about 7, my mum bought me this guitar from a yard sale and I ‘sort of’ learned to play it. I listened a lot to records; mostly my brother’s who is nine years my senior. Amongst the Folk, Blues and Pop stuff he had collected was the LP 'With the Beatles'. I still remember being able to hear and play the main riff from the opening track, ‘Money’- I was hooked! Rather like a rabbit in the headlights there was no escape and I was soon picking up bits from books and listening to the likes of Davey Graham, Bert Jansch, and John Renbourn - I suppose I was trying to capture their sound since I remember learning a sort of “Angie”. But, I now realise that all of my music is 'sort of' or 'sounds a bit like' so you might say to summarise, that it’s all my own sound now.
However, as that testosterone fuelled, invincible 17 year old motorcyclist, it was easy to see that I might fall off and true to form, I did. At the time I was an apprentice, modesty prevents me saying I was a half-decent finger style guitarist mit mandolin player, a dinghy sailor, a runner and being testosterone fuelled teenager, a sex maniac.
Now to where my playing style originated. The motorcycle accident caused a spinal injury to my neck which resulted in permanent paralysis from the chest downwards. Like anyone who has a spinal injury, I was abruptly faced with a a number of major life changing consequences, but one of the most difficult for me, was the prospect of not being a musician since my hands were seriously impaired.
However, first and foremost, I am an optimist and secondly, I was still alive and still keen to give life a good swing around by the tail. I soon realised that I would be always using a wheelchair, but that was primarily a tool to get around with, so I could and would attempt to continue with my life in the most ordinary fashion possible. The most prominent realisation was that I was the same person, but with a new set of challenges, frustrations and priorities to those I had before.
At the time, being unable to play the guitar, my way of expressing true individuality, was the biggest challenge and frustration.
So, for a few years guitars hung around on walls and music swirled in my head, sometimes pleasantly, sometimes like a whirlpool with no way of physical escape. Being unable to bear this frustration any longer, I had someone pass me a guitar off the wall and started tuning it to an open chord, as you may guess, I was feeling very afraid of it.
I think I'd heard some bottleneck playing at some time, certainly there was mainstream rock with slide on a Stratocaster or something. The likes of Clapton and Chris Rea all clean around the twelfth fret and I vaguely remembered black and white films and Hula girl’s from some Hawaiian music on the old television set. To conquer the fear, I just decided that I would and could play the guitar. That was it, I could and I would - I just needed to start. -
I have never lost that self-belief or enthusiasm.
The thing is I can’t move my fingers on my left hand at all and my right hand has very limited strength and movement. What there is on my right hand is claw-like and my thumb only has about 40% of the movement of an 'ordinary' one.
Attempting bottleneck style-ish with a tube placed on my index finger of my left hand out of ten attempts seven were really awful, of the remaining three one was so-so, another made me want to throw the guitar out the window and the last made me feel really good inside, if not a little emotional. It was that one good result that made it easier to tackle the other nine - so I carried on trying. This would be around 1980 and I did this guitar thing every couple of days - maybe twice a week. It became a challenge.
In 1982, I was working in the buying office of my old employer, but in the offices – it bored me and I was at a stage in my life where I wanted to understand about who and where I was in the world, about people and the politics of society. I left the job and went to University to study Sociology and eventually became a Social Worker. I still did the guitar thing and it was improving but being a bit scared, I wasn't thinking I was really playing it.
The career change was a good thing for me, from University, I grew a lot and I loved the de-mystification of academic life - I like making sense of things.
And, I was making a bit of sense of a few folk songs I used to know when I was younger, I had found some chords and sounds that I liked. A good friend, Jane Blackburn had a friend whose father owned a guitar shop in Canada. They sent me over a shiny resonator guitar that looked a bit like one on the Dire Straits album, it cost £200.00. It was a Dobro and it looked as if it was a bit serious. I was still a bit frightened.
After my degree stuff, in terms of career, I got a new job in Social Work and related stuff - got promoted, all that malarkey. I stayed with it until 1999, when I left that profession to devote more of my time (at last) to music.
Over that 15 year period, my guitar playing had developed, I was listening to all sorts of slide guitar music and I started playing songs and tunes that I knew - most of them were just in my head and needed an escape route. My arms and hands were the escape tunnel to the world of music creation and sound. Out of the 10 times of playing, only 6 would be rubbish, 2 would be O.K. one would be good and one felt really exciting – at last I felt was on to something here but I still didn’t know if I was “playing” the damn guitar or not. I was married then, my wife didn’t know either - I wonder if that had anything to do with our divorce?
1999, I heard of a New York guitarist called, Woody Mann, who was going to run a Guitar Workshop in the UK. I was also single and living alone, but I was also working a lot on the guitar, I still didn’t know if I was “playing“ it or not, but I was doing something.
So I took myself along to my first ever Guitar Workshop, run by this bloke Woody Mann. It was actually held in Birkenhead, as part of the Wirral International Guitar Festival. November, 1999, a pivotal day and I was a bit frightened, for all sorts of reasons. One of the main ones being that this guitar workshop was for guitar players and they were going to be people with finger movement who played regular guitar. I remember telling myself in the car on the way there- 'I don’t have finger movement and I don’t know if I am playing the guitar'.
The day was an absolute success that made me realise that I was making music, I could play new tunes that I heard and so I might be playing the damn guitar after all. Woody Mann had been a pupil of the Rev. Gary Davis and a student at the Julliard School in New York. He also ran the annual International Guitar Seminar in New York with his friend Bob Brozman. Woody more of less insisted that I attended the seminar. No, more than that he made if very difficult for me not to attend and told me I would be an asset to the week of study and performance. It was an amazing day.
This would be June 2000, the16th as a mater of fact – the IGS and I was there. I attended workshops with famous players like Bob Brozman, John Cephas and John Renbourn. I made a whole raft of new friends. I jammed with anyone and I played the concerts. I played as much as I could and the whole experience moved me to begin to understanding something of the musical, emotional voice of my music and the music of others.
When I returned to the U.K., I hunted out all the old country blues music I could find along with finding other guitarists to play music with. I met Paul Wheelan, a great player, flamenco and rootsy, a grow-your-own merchant and a vegetarian individualist. We recorded my first album, 'The Bell' in Paul's kitchen using a mini disc recorder on a diet of pasta and pies, laughter and weed. The first track was a version of Banty Rooster by Charlie Patten, played on a 12 string, lap style. It got great reviews, national radio air play, it launched me on a new career and a new beginning.
One thing led to another and I produced another CD‘ Running Free’ which started to show more of my song writing, I am delighted to say that too has received critical acclaim and been played nationally.
You can buy my CDs in shops, over the internet, through my web sites and all that malarkey. Despite some national air play, I’m still a relatively unknown musician working in a genre of music that is mostly ignored and less understood than some. My third album is about half way completed and I hope to have it in the can by Christmas.
Last year I travelled to Kolkata with my guitar to spend time with an Indian Slide guitar player, I gigged in Canada and Ullapool guitar festival. This November, sees me return to the Wirral International Guitar festival where I first met Woody Mann in 1999. Last year, I was support to Woody’s gig there; this year, I will be playing my own concert in Birkenhead Town Hall, which brings this current story almost full circle.
It is a bit serious. I am still a bit frightened but I love it.
External links
| Tom Doughty on MySpace |
| Tom Doughty on Wikipedia |
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This artist lives in United Kingdom. |
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The gender of this artist/group is male. |
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Request a show of songs by Tom Doughty
| Song | Album | Length | Played | Overall | You | Tags | Single Request |
| Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye | Running Free | 3:30 | 8 |  2 votes |
You have to login to give your opinion about songs. | Instrumental / Slide guitar | Sleepwalk | The Bell | 2:07 | 4 |  3 votes |
You have to login to give your opinion about songs. | Slide guitar | Darlin' Cora | Running Free | 3:02 | 9 | 5 votes |
You have to login to give your opinion about songs. | Slide guitar / Acoustic / Solo vocalist |
| Total Time | 8:39 |
The current music queue contains 8 songs that will take 23 mins, 53 secs to play.
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Artist name is|Tom Doughty Last played| more than 1 week ago ---------------------------------------- Show name| Songs by Tom Doughty Length| 15 minutes Order by| random Limit| 3 songs ----------------------------------------
Stats
- Spotlighted: Friday, January 20th 2006
- Artist site clicks: 24
- Songs on WWR: 25
- Total plays: 170
- Total requests: 93
- Total listens: 4960
- CDBaby website clicks: 23
- CDBaby referrals: 2
- CDBaby sales: Running Free (Sold 1 copies)
The Bell (Sold 1 copies)
Other skins for artist pages
| Default / Simple / Classic / Jimbob / For Playing Around With / 12-stringer / Atuu / Mert / Kelli / Rubenerd |
