Page 36 - Kol Bogrei Habonim - Autumn 21
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Brits. We knew each other. Our eyes met I begged for a guitar. My mum couldn’t
briefly on Sunday afternoons and Wednesday afford ketchup, so I turned to my dad, who I
evenings in acknowledgment before we think was shacked up with some bird (his
raised our heads and became Habonimniks words) in the south of England at the time and
for a few hours. If that wasn’t you, you can’t who agreed to buy me an axe for my 10th
imagine the relief. It was a drug. birthday. When it arrived, it was a kid sized
classical with plastic strings. I didn’t care. I
All this I remember, but the thing that had the
most profound effect on my life was the didn’t know the difference. I think my mum
music. There were acoustic guitars called Adam Malin and set up a lesson,
everywhere. The 1960’s weren’t even a which I will never forget. A minor. E major.
memory for me, born in ’66, but somehow, D minor. The beginning of Dona Dona. I
this movement’s music library had stopped couldn’t believe it. I played the chords till my
taking on new material in about 1973. This fingers bled and I cried. My mum called
was the greatest stroke of luck of all. We Adam. He said to be patient. I have learned
learned Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, hundreds of chords since then and made up a
Dylan, Julie Felix, CSNY and Beatles bunch of my own, but I’ve never learned
songs… tons and tons of Beatles songs. I patience… It’s on my bucket list.
forget who the main player was, but I recall
taller people than me holding up giant rolls of
paper with lyrics, week after week, singing
and playing with eyes closed in ecstasy.
Outside the plasterboard walls Punk Rock,
Disco and overblown Prog were fighting for
the airwaves, but in our musky haven it was
the spirit of Newport forever.
We sang songs in Hebrew too. From the
Biblical and sublime (Oseh Shalom, Hineh
Ma Tov) through the then current Israeli
folk/rock of Shalom Chanoch and Arik
Einstein to the nonsensical and hilarious “I played the chords till my
fingers bled and I cried”
(Hoy Vanyati Vanya, Ani Ata VeHu - Ve If Adam was a great teacher, and I’m
Johnny Kangaroo). I relished them all inclined to believe he was, he was a lousy
without prejudice and without hearing the businessman. A couple of lessons in, he
original recordings. I hadn’t really tried it for suggested I get a copy of a book, “The
lack of confidence, but at 9 years old, in Beatles Complete for Guitar”. It had charts
Amelim I had a sense that I could hold a tune. for every Beatles song, with those little chord
I ached to be cool and play guitar, or to be graphs above the lyrics. If you could read
able to disappear into the woods and one, you could read ‘em all. That was me, off
accompany myself as I sang to the trees and to the races with my newly formed callouses
tested my voice. To be heard.
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