What Would You Take to France?

Image credit: Cheryl Hutt 

People will bring anything from a favorite pair of jeans to a classic car when they move to France. I brought my guitar, my music, and my memories.

Early 1950s family singalong in Wilmette, Illinois. Image credit: Mark Jespersen

I hit my teen years in the late 1950s just as rock and roll was taking hold in Chicago. Music was a big part of our family life, and we had weekly sing-alongs playing old favorites, a hymn or two, and some of the new folk songs I was learning. My sister played the piano, brother Earl was on tenor guitar, Roy on his snare drum, Dad with his violin or harmonica, and Mom leaning in with her fine alto harmony. “Your dad and I once sang in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir,” Mom would remind us. “Back when you didn’t have to audition,” was Dad’s self-deprecating follow-up.

My brother Roy and his first band, The Hurricanes, were nearly kicked out of New Trier High School for playing loud rock and roll tunes.

My brother, Roy, however, wanted more than a mellow evening of nice tunes. When he turned 15, he bought a full set of drums and started a rock and roll band with friends from New Trier High School, including Mike Bloomfield and Roy Ruby. They called themselves the Hurricanes and practiced at our home in suburban Wilmette. Mom said they made too much noise and banished them to the attic, where Dad installed some foam insulation panels to try and deaden the blast.

I was banned from their practice sessions, but one day I poked my head in. They all stopped, waiting for me to give them a legitimate reason to explain why they should stop practicing. Bloomfield finally took pity on me. “Come on in, kid.” He handed me his guitar, showed me how to hold it, and how to play a G chord. My brother, Roy, was annoyed, but Mike said I was a natural. “I learned on a little guitar I got at Sears; you should get one.” That weekend, Roy took me down to the Sears Catalog store in Evanston, where I bought the same style of guitar. It cost me all of $19.99, but it was well worth the money.

LEFT: My first guitar: a Silvertone made by Kay or Harmony in Chicago. It sold for $19.99 through the Sears and Roebuck mail-order catalogue, a precursor to online shopping at Amazon. RIGHT: Fuzzy photo from 1962 playing my first guitar and singing “Michael Row the Boat Ashore” with Jackie Grey in Wilmette. I had to look closely at my fingering back then.

By the early 1960s, Bloomfield had moved on, perfecting the blues at clubs like the Fickle Pickle and Big John’s in Chicago’s Old Town district.

Chicago’s Old Town vibe in the 1960s – 1970s with posters for Prine, Steve Goodman, and Jim Post in the front windows at the Earl of Old Town bar and club.

Mother Blues in Old Town, 1960s

Mike and Roy Ruby playing for nickels and dimes out on the street in Old Town, 1963. Though Bloomfield came from a wealthy Chicago family

Mike and Silver Sid Warner at Big John’s in Old Town, 1964 – Bloomfield’s first band at Big John’s included Michael Johnson on guitar, drummer Norm Mayell and bassist Silver Sid Warner (who had replaced Roy Ruby or Bob Wolff). Charlie Musselwhite, now a world-famous blues harp player, recalls that they usually would do seven sets a night, from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m.

I formed a small folk group and moved to Old Town after high school. Unlike Bloomfield, I was more interested in contemporary folk music and the tight harmonies of the Kingston Trio or Peter, Paul & Mary. I wanted to play like Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and Joni Mitchell, so I enrolled at the original Old Town School of Folk Music.

More images from the Old Town School of Folk Music, where I learned the basics and more…

An early class at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago

With Brian and Laurie Nischke in the Glenbrook North High School folk group in 1963, when we took first place at the North Shore Folk Music Festival

John Prine

I remember one Saturday morning class where a ragged group of 20 kids my age learned Travis picking from Doc Watson. John Prine and his older brother were also in that class. John went on to write some of the greatest folk songs ever recorded. Bloomfield became a legend as well, with Rolling Stone magazine naming him one of the world’s great blues-rock guitarists.

A Chicago newspaper advertisement for Murine Eye Drops. They made me wear the hat.

Early 1970s playing my Guild D40 in front of an exhibition of my early photographs at an art show near Park City, Utah.

Today, the guitar is more popular than ever. People are discovering the joy of playing not only the guitar, but also the mandolin, fiddle, and banjo. What makes the guitar so appealing? For me, it’s not about performing up on stage, though I’ve done that many times; it’s about sharing our emotions and telling stories.

And a night of bluegrass in Round Pond, Maine a few years back outside King Ro Market

Before we moved to Seillans, in the south of France, there were Monday jam sessions in our village of Round Pond, Maine, that brought people together on summer evenings to perform their favorite songs surrounded by folks stopping by to sit on the lawn and enjoy the music. Unsurprisingly, on our first flight to France, I wanted to bring my beautiful Guild D40 acoustic guitar, bought in Chicago in 1964, with me. The flight attendant curtly told me they had no extra room for my Guild, and I had to check it. Just then, the pilot wandered over to see what the fuss was about.

Can you open the case for me?” he asked. When he saw my guitar, he whistled. “Listen, let me take that up in the cockpit and put it behind my seat. I’ll take good care of it. Used to play myself back in the day.”

I was lucky on that flight, but the rest of the trip was a nightmare, lugging the hardshell case through airports, security checks, train stations, and taxis.

Summer jam at King Ro Market in Round Pond, Maine, with visiting musician Slaid Cleaves (in purple shirt). Other well-known musicians who’ve stopped in to jam with us include Livingston Taylor, James Taylor’s equally talented brother, and renowned fiddle player Natalya Kay (whose grandparents live nearby).

The next year in France, I found an excellent used Martin DX1 online at Leboncoin, and that’s what I play here now. We still return to Maine every summer, and my Guild awaits there. One day I was walking home past the gallery of Bernard, a local artist in Seillans, my guitar case in hand. His English was not great, but he managed to ask if I played the guitar.

I said yes, and he said, “Could you play something for me?” I sat down and played a decent version of Dylan’s “Don’t think twice it’s alright” while he watched intently. “Can you teach me how to play that?” He seemed enthusiastic. I said sure, why not.

Over the following year, every Monday, we’d practice in front of his workshop, attracting the attention of several more folks who wanted to learn, or learn more. Four years later, his playing had vastly improved, and we now have five players in our Monday night jam sessions here in France. They’ve learned about 40 songs, mostly blues and folk, as well as a few French tunes.

Our Blues on Monday jam session in Seillans, France. With me next to Bernard Remusat, Pete Mylett, David Hudson, and Jean-Marie Hirt (missing Jim Corbett and Jean-Claude on drums that night).

We’ve even been invited out a few times to perform at local senior citizen homes and at the Fête de la Musique, an annual music celebration that takes place in France on 21 June. It’s a fine tradition, a little like an enormous jam session for the entire country when amateurs and professionals are urged to play music outside in their neighborhoods.

Practice session with Bernard while enjoying a light lunch with local artists Stella Erbibo, center right, and Serge Dos with Elise Dartmour, center left, in front of their galleries in Seillans.. 

We were short 3 players the night John showed up to play in Seillans, but it was great just the same.

In March this year, John, a good friend and a fine musician who plays with me back in Maine (he plays professionally as well) emailed to say he and his wife were in Europe and they had made plans to leave from Nice.

Could we get together before leaving? Maybe join your jam session in Seillans?”

The following Monday, I told the group that John might be joining us. They were all excited and went online to download a couple of his songs. These were printed out, the chords and lyrics in English, and we practiced them a few times ahead of his arrival in two weeks. And what fun it was to have John with us in France, playing those familiar songs with my new friends. Something magical happened that night when my two worlds, France and Maine, came together along with memories from way back in Chicago, and my first guitar.

That night, as we were having our picture taken, John asked the group how they felt about learning so many American songs.

“Oh, don’t think twice, it is all right …” said Bernard in his broken English.

What unusual thing have you brought to France, or what would you take when you move? Please share in the comments below.

External Links:

• Why People Play: A Survey of 2,076 Real Guitar Players
• Elizabeth Cotton: A legend in American roots music
• American roots music spreads around the world
• The appeal of American folk music around the world
• The full Mike Bloomfield Story

Image credit:
All images copyright the author, Mark Jespersen unless otherwise stated.

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