Derek Harris has nursed an ambition all his life but it took until he was in his sixties to become, finally, a rock guitarist.
All the guitar teachers 68 year old Derek Harris could find ‘seemed to want to teach me to play three different chords and learn the words to Greensleeves which was not what I wanted to do’. Then one day he found out about Rock School which turned out to be just what he wanted.
His teacher, John Cleary is used to dealing with 16-25 year old wannabes so suddenly having a pupil in his sixties means he takes thing one step at a time. Derek finds John a hard task master, ‘there is no room in his world for that’ll do … it’s either right or it’s wrong’, and Derek finds the discipline difficult. Being older, though, means he appreciates what is being done for him. While John may be tough he is creating a frame of reference for Derek and not being ‘some middle aged upstart… reading the riot act to him’.
One of the young wannabes who has played on stage with Derek is Julian Hayes. He felt that ‘obviously it doesn’t matter what age of guitarist you play with, if someone is out of time then it is noticeable’ and the other guitarists agree that Derek played very well. The audience reaction was a little hard to gauge however because when Derek stopped playing they just clapped.
Although Derek’s two children seem to see him a boozing rocker he enjoys going to see Eric Clapton and Dave Beale. He has even been known to travel as far afield as France, with his friend Christine Cook who is also in her sixties, in order to attend a gig and never feels out of place. ‘Nobody ever treats us any different… Your just another one of the audience and that’s that’.
