MY FIRST SONG

There was a lot of good music on the radio in the 60s, when I grew up. Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, The Yard Birds, Jefferson Airplane. I would have the radio on, as I was making models in the garage. When I was a teenager, I played folk songs in the Washington Cathedral with some other boys that were in the group with me. That built my reportoire. We sang Bob Dylan songs, gospel, spirituals, traditional. I got my first steel string guitar at that point. A Harmony 12-String. My fingers got really strong!!
I never thought of making a musical carreer. I didn't think of career at all!! I just loved to play music, enjoy with friends.
Around this time, I was introduced to spirituality - as a seperate thing than religion. A girlfriend of mine gave me the book 'Be Here Now', which opened a whole world of mysticism, meditation, and a journey of self-awareness. I learnt how to meditate and began practicing yoga. I got exposed to Indian music. I actually heard Ravi Shankar play in the Washington Cathedral. In that time, I also was exposed to blues and jazz - through my friends at school; and started playing in bands.
I composed the first song, when I was 12 or 13 years old. We were still living in the house on River Hill Road, in Louisville, KY.
It was a song about waking up and thinking about a girlfriend. How happy I was to see her. And, I remember - when I wrote that, I was hit by doubts: "Everybody writes songs likes this! So many songs are out there in the world already! What's the point of writing one more?"