Strangely enough, through all those school years I decided at 13 or 14 I was going to be a musician and so school was just something to get out of the way, a waste of time and not to bother with it. Alvin Lee Read Quote
My solos are more tastefully conceived now. But I still get going in places. It’s just that I build up to it now. I don’t race off on a solo. I take my time. Alvin Lee Read Quote
I just play to the people I can see. So it’s almost like you are playing to the first few rows of the crowd. You can see the faces of the first hundred people, but then it becomes a blur as the crowds disappear over the hill. Alvin Lee Read Quote
My all-time favorite rock and roll players were Scotty Moore, Chuck Berry and Franny Beecher, and I listened to the country playing of Merle Travis. Alvin Lee Read Quote
We used to play the underground clubs like the UFO, and Middle Earth, and they were great because they would have on things like a poet, string quartets, and then a rock band! It was kinda cool! Alvin Lee Read Quote
It was by listening to Goodman’s band, that I began to notice the guitarist Charlie Christian, who was one of the first musicians to play solos in a big band set-up. Alvin Lee Read Quote
I just couldn’t take school seriously: I had this guitar neck with four frets which I kept hidden under the desk. It had strings on it so I would practice my chord shapes under the desk and that’s about all I did at school. Alvin Lee Read Quote
That’s the kind of musical freedom I like: jazz, rock, blues, anything. You adopt different attitudes when you play different music. Alvin Lee Read Quote
