Today we’d like to introduce you to Joe Kelly
Hi Joe, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My mom signed me up for guitar lessons when I was 10. I made an offhand comment weeks earlier, saying it would be cool to learn. I wasn’t serious about it. It was more of an interesting possibility, one of those, “Wouldn’t it be cool…” type of thoughts. I took piano lessons in second grade, but soccer was just too important for an 8 year old to skip out on, so I quit lessons a few months in.
I studied classical guitar for a few years. As much as I was obsessed with fingerstyle guitarists and instrumental music, I was jealous of everybody else who played guitar. They sang, played with picks, and could solo. I could sing, but not while playing, and I had no idea what power chords were.
Jack Johnson’s music had become an easy pastime for me, listening-wise and practicing-wise. He had simple but thoughtful melodies and lyrics, and it was easy to get sucked into learning a lot of his stuff. I never brought it up to my guitar instructor at the time, but I guess you could say Jack Johnson became a second, unintentional teacher.
A girl I had my first huge crush on in 8th grade was going to dance for the middle school talent show, on one condition: I couldn’t just play my classical piece I had practiced for months, but I had to play something where I’d sing. Mortified, I agreed. I decided to play a cover of a cover: Jason Mraz’s version of “Rocket Man”. 500 or so people made it loud and apparent they enjoyed it. Friends and classmates got so excited that over a dozen of them tackled me when I was at my locker.