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What do you get?Well of course you get some Roddy - he's probably been the greatest influence in my playing and my writing. And I'm old enough not to worry about taints of him shining through - a song writer of his quality, it can't be a bad thing to have coming through. But what surprised me was the less obvious undertones of other writers that have been important to me.So you also get Johnny Cash, Jackson Browne, Crowded House, Don MacLean, Billy Bragg, Hothouse Flowers, Traditional Irish & Scots (If you know what to listen for), Cole Porter, Nat King Cole, Bruce Springsteen, Mikey Scott of The Waterboys, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson... Then there's Justin Currie (Unfashionably pop and unfashionably socialist)... And then I think of Ivan Morrison... And, and, and...You suddenly find yourself going from C to C7 and Fmaj to Fmin and that's all those early Beatles chords you listened to surfacing so many years later.My first electric (an SD Curlee) and a cheap wee 10 watt amp blasted out The Clash and The Jam - They were my bands. My two elder brothers clocked on to Yes and Genesis and Todd Rungren - Prog-Rock-A-Go-Go.Police and Thieves - Cs and Gs and Ds - reggae style Clash and blistered fingers. Years spent liking stuff and equally not liking stuff - wasted years not liking certain types of music - the folly of youth. Is youth wasted on the young?Then this wee guy from East Kilbride - just up the backroads from me - is piling in with Major sevenths and augmenteds - this aural background to his songs that just blew me away. He was playing sweet,lyrical, melodic music and he still is today - and I am as hard pushed now as then to find a genre to fit him into.The past seven or eight years have seen riptide changes in my life. I lost my father. I married Christine my long-time partner. We had Cara, our beautiful daughter. My wife and I nursed and watched her mother suffer and pass from cancer. I tried my own business and failed miserably to the point of sequestration. The past couple of years have been periods of re-assessment and re-adjustment. And a constant for me was music, my music... And a man called Stephen Lynas. He's my best friend and he kept at me to do something with my talent. I ran out of ways to smile and say something sage to him by means of a diversion technique.Write what you know they say.I know a lot more than I did when I was in my twenties. Equal measures of hurt and hapiness.And it's led me to here.Does the world need another heart on his sleeve acoustic singer songwriter?I am fucked if I know.Tell you what...You tell me.GM