I try not to put anything from my private life on the internet but sometimes there is a crossover between private and musical life so for this i make an exception. I do find this uncomfortable and hope that if i don't like it being here in the future the administrators will allow me to have the post deleted.
Well my start in music came when I played a Wailers track called Duppy Conqueror from one of mum's compilation albums and something about that made me want to play bass. Later on mum bought me my first acoustic guitar for my 15th birthday, (i still have it), and my first bass about a year later and although she didn't come to many of my gigs she was always supportive and loved to hear about my gigs and came to some of the ones where I was playing guitar in a couple of steel bands and the jazzy ones in more recent years.
Anyway this morning sadly, my mum passed away in her sleep. It wasn't unexpected but it is indeed a difficult thing for me to grasp at the moment as I saw her for a few hours yesterday morning and we were really close and I was also her carer for 3 1/2 years when she moved into my home from the caribbean. She then moved into a care home about 4 years ago, which is where she passed away.
Now and again I tried to get her to have a strum on one of my guitars she never did.
However a few years back when she was living with me and I was on the sofa learning some music, the phone rang and I sat her down and placed the bass on her lap and the head phones on and left her to it. When I came back she was engrossed and I took this one photo before she realised.
So this is a treasured photo and this is the one place i feel that I want to share it, but respectfully request you don't share it or any comments about this moment anywhere else such as social media as I don't want to be discussing this on somewhere like facebook. If I do it will be when me and my family feel comfortable to do so.
As it happens I have a dep gig tonight and have agonised over whether to do the gig or not but after discussing with my family we think she would not want me to cancel this gig, but to carry on with my music so I am going to do the gig and hope I can get through it OK. I had already planned to take that bass with me as it's vintage reggae and ska, all played with 4 string basses.
Thanks for reading.
