GOIN’ HOME:
“Hey Lar, it’s Trev”
That familiar northern lilt, a man of groove & wisdoms,
renowned for his drumming & back step conversation. We’d sat
in his yard in summer, me listening,him sharing experience
for free, me smiling, leaving lighter than the arriving,
burned by the sun. Now, still wrapped in winter padding
I was standing in the rain with a cell phone facsimile
of his voice. I’ve danced to his grooves, lifted on the subtle
nuance of his feel, a man who knows exactly when ‘it’s in the
pocket’. In recent times I’ve come to know him as a great writer,
as yet unpublished except for the emails he sends. What joy
discovering one so gifted in the art of hitting stuff is even
more natural at stringing words like pearls.
“Alvin’s gone man” – he said. It shocked me, shook me, perhaps
just as much to know I never heard it on the news or the weekly
radio obituary. I’d been watching him only a week ago, playing
‘Goin’ Home’ at that festival of festivals, the gathering of the
free love tribes that signalled the end of the beautiful times.
Him with his famous red guitar, fingers in overdrive, delivering
a familiar clipped 60’s tone I aspired to own but never did.
That familiar Ban the Bomb sticker that inspired me to personalise
my Gibsons just like his. Alvin gone, but not forgotten.
“He was a great guitarist Lar, could play anything, we used to
have a three piece together, play for fun in the bars down at
the beach. Me, Boz Burrel & Alvin – he was a brilliant guitarist”
I heard the sound of his voice & missed him.
“Keep writing Trev, write every day. You’re a great writer,
So many stories to tell”
(K)
Karl Hyde 