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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | Sam Smith <sam@lullabypit.com> |
| Subject | Re: What IS influence, anyway? |
| Date | Thu, 01 Mar 2007 08:46:56 -0700 |
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Maybe it's more to do with what you directly grew up with and learned
by. I guess as i learned to play my instruments i was listening to
and emulating the Beatles, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty,
Springsteen. I loved the Band back then, but never tried to emulate
them because musically they seemed way beyond me. When i felt i had
the skills to try to emulate them, the pop thing was possibly too
engrained for me to break.
I'm not a musician (unless you count being a half-assed shower vocalist
who played tuba in the high school band), but I am a writer and have been
forever. So I get a lot of what you and others here are talking about
because it's kinda my experience, as well. I think my answer to your
experience with The Band is Yeats. I always wanted desperately to be like
him, but stylistically Eliot, Hopkins, Dylan Thomas and Charles Wright
were easier access points for me. So in my mind, Yeats was probably that
"influence" who wasn't really an influence in that I wouldn't imagine you
could actually detect it in my writing.
Maybe it's a matter of sufficient time and right audience, though,
because on two or three occasions lately I've had people note, out of the
blue, my obvious Yeats influences. I look at the stuff and wonder how
they hell they got that, but it makes me feel all warm inside.
So maybe people will start noticing you Band influence as you continue to
grow artistically.
--
_______________________
Sam Smith, PhD
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