A 10-Year Old Hendrix in Iowa

An old friend and former co-worker of mine posted this video on Facebook earlier this week. It's from the Cherokee, Iowa Jazz & Blues Festival that took place last weekend. They had a number of area bands booked, but the scene-stealer was a 10-year old who busted out what we call the guitar players National Anthem: Jimi Hendrix' "Voodoo Chile".

I don't want to give his full name because according to my friend, 'Paul' is the son of a local teacher and to this point, is just playing the guitar 'for fun'. I don't know about you, but I had a LOT of fun watching this performance with members of The Candymakers. She said that Paul also did a cover of Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Pride and Joy", but I haven't seen a video of that yet.

But I have seen videos and witnessed VERY young guitar players you may have heard of like Jonny Lang (I first saw him as a 14-year old performing as Kid Jonny Lang & The Big Bang from Fargo, ND) and a very young son of a guitar shop owner named Joe Bonamassa. They took the 'playing for fun' to a WHOLE new level!

So a few years from now if you see me introducing a young guitar slinger from Iowa at JazzFest, you can say "I remember when Crash wrote about him!"