The Chetboard

I'm a little late posting this, but if anyone is in northeast Oklahoma we are having our annual Gospel Guitar Jam tonight at Depew High School auditorium. If you want to hear some good gospel guitar music tonight come to Depew, Oklahoma tonight. Here's a link to the info:

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb41/guitarchuck/JAM20111-1.jpg

I wish I was still living in Ponca

I'd love to attend one of those. Although I perform in other venues, I find that churches make up the bulk of what I do.I'm not around others who do the same. My inspiration for arrangements never comes from listening to the guitar. The ideas are more "wide open" that way. It would be interesting to see what others are doing.

I got home about 3:00 this morning. Thanks Chuck. This is the first time I have been to the Jam Session in quite a while. I think a lot of folks would be surprised at how good some of these "Gospel" guitarists really are. There were hot licks and just plain old good guitar picking going on last night. Ernie Maxwell was the highlight, but there were lots of good moments. Kudos to Darrell McDaniel, Tim Beck and all of those that work very hard every year to put on a stellar event. BTW, you should have heard Chuck's CGP coming through his Schwickerized 25L15. He was playing some good stuff and the tone was just out of this world. He allowed me to plug in my guitar for a short test run, and I am still in heaven. Maybe God, in His mercy, will allow me to own a 25L15 before I die.

Richard,
Well I was fast asleep by the time you got home, of course I didn't have as far to drive. We are really blessed with a quite a few gospel guitarist in the Oklahoma area. There was a lot of really good stuff last night. You did really great Richard, I always like to hear you pick. We have this one every spring in Depew, OK and now we have a smaller one at the church that I go to in Broken Arrow, OK the 3rd Friday in October every year. I know it's a little farther for you to drive, but maybe you can come and pick at the fall gospel jam this year. Thanks for the good words about my playing, I'm always nevrvous with all those good pickers there. I still love my Gretsch CGP and people always seem to like my Schwickerath 25L15. I also had the chance to meet Randy Parker from here on the Chetboard last night. We had a great time, a lot of good guitar music.

Richard mentioned Ernie Maxwell being the highlight of the Gospel Guitar Jam. It's always great to see one of your guitar heros in person. All the invited guitarist got the chance to pick with Ernie during the jam portion at the end of the evening. It was great fun. For those of you that aren't familiar with Ernie Maxwell here's a little info about him:
http://maxwell.ggjam.com/ He has a Chet Atkins connection as you can read on that link. I had my picture taken with him on a cell phone camera last night:
Here's a photo of his classic album that he made in 1969 when he was with southern gospel group: The Happy Goodman Family:
This album is a little hard to find, but there is one on Ebay right now. Ernie also sells CD copies of it..