Tag Archives: Ringo Starr

“Act Naturally;” “Hollywood Boulevard;” Home of the Guitar

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A guitar is literally “at home” in the Avila Adobe, LA’s oldest house (1818). The instrument was a “movable center” of Mexican life and civilization. Here, he stands in for the Don at the end of a day’s ride. His wine is poured, his frets are kicked back before a pinion-scented brazier, and God is in His heaven above.

The guitar is a legacy of Spanish culture in America. Los Angeles is, and always has been, the capital of Spanish culture in America, and Los Angeles has developed from these roots an awesome — indeed unparalleled — guitar history.

Charles Fletcher Lummis playing at El Alisal; this may be one of the photo-plate images comprising his front window. Lummis did much to document and popularize the traditional Spanish folk songs that were extant in Los Angeles at the end of the 19th Century. Norteno/mariachi music, solo recitals of folkloric songs, and/or group sing-alongs in the arroyo, were always a feature of Lummis’s celebrated dinner parties.

Los Angeles, and later Hollywood, and later still North Hollywood, have been since 1849 the destination of every dreamer with a six-string. (Remember that the “Western” portion of “Country/Western” refers to Hollywood, not Nashville; and that Capitol Records, at Hollywood/Vine, was the launching place of the Beatles, among other greats, to world audiences.) Hollywood Boulevard still attracts people of staggering talent and heartbreaking genius.

Okay, not this guy… he’s just waiting for a bus.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c336lh1FactDkvNg7pLqEJYVbCJFuIzn/view?usp=sharing

Click above to hear “Ringo” singing about Hollywood. (True, Ringo isn’t a guitar player, but the other Fab 3 were.) The group is “Ticket to Ride,” a wonderful Beatles cover band that appeared in NoHo Park last month. I saw “Beatlemania” four times at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway in the early 80s; but this Beatles concert, free, under the stars, a few steps from my front door, on the cool eucalyptus-scented green, where weed was perfectly legal, was pure heaven.

Hollywood and Vine. Up the hill is Capitol Records, the House of Wax that Johnny Mercer built.
Hollywood Boulevard, the Walk of Fame. Step on stars as you wander down the street.


Gene Autry, Woody Guthrie, Roy Rogers, native Richie Valens, Les Ford, and Frank Zappa are representative of great LA guitarists who are recognized for developing and popularizing the art and the instrument. Their beats and choruses and chords and rhythms and riffs, and the recording techniques they pioneered, are the ground work for the most popular music the world ever knew.

Click below for Brad Raisin, one of the local singer-songwriters who blesses the City of the Queen of Angels by composing among her sage-scented breezes, and performing his songs at Kulak’s Woodshed in Valley Village. Here’s Raisin’s catchy take on “Hollywood Blvd.”, a brand new song, live from North Hollywood, premiered just last week.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K_J3p-2BqG1mqK0qg8myj-P0n1lnYoNQ/view?usp=sharing