After all, it’s not too often that you hear of the leading band in the region offering a spot in the line up to a fifteen-year-old girl. She’d have needed to acquire a Hammond B3 as part of the deal, and her parents would have put a very quick and firm kibosh on the deal, but the offer was, as far as I can recall, actually made.
It was one of the nights when we’d inveigled Gutbucket onto the premises, and when Irma wasn’t keen to jam, there was an invitation to jam with them. A guitarist named Trevor Bailey was involved, and while he wasn’t bad, bore some facial resemblance to Jeff Beck and played fair enough guitar with appropriate facial expressions when he was away from his regular gig with the Army band, he wasn’t in the same league as Mr Montgomery.
As a bystander watching proceedings develop I recall an initial reluctance on Ric’s part to join what was more than likely going to end up as a cutting contest, when he’d been anticipating playing a little bit of low-key tasteful blues.
While I’ve got all the instrumental ability of a gnat, I can imagine the mindset when you’re the acknowledged #1 guitar-slinger and there’s an endless run of young dudes with attitudes in excess of their ability who want to try to knock you off your perch.
I suspect it’s very much a case of Not this shit again.
Talking cutting sessions there’s a perfect example at the end of a movie called Crossroads, the one where the kid from The Karate Kid helps the old blues man who sold his soul to the Devil at the notorious Crossroads (along with Robert Johnson). In the movie the deal is that if the kid can outplay the Devil’s protege the old guy gets his soul back, while if he loses, there goes his own soul.
In the movie, while the guitar work is provided by Ry Cooder and (mainly) Steve Vai, on screen you see a stone-faced Ralph Macchio versus Steve Vai dragging out every facial contortion in the heavy lead player’s repertoire.