Singalong - just follow the coloured, sliding bars

Unplugged, still wired - It's not like I'm desperate to impress my not easily impressed kids, but I still give it the old college try. Given that much of my recollection is a bit dusty, a little embellishment never hurts either.

The tales are often evoked by coincidence - for example, when Molly and Tessa were enjoying their new Wii, on Rock Band mode. Less than a bar into the song I recognized Mississippi Queen, it being one of those great cowbell-intro numbers.

"Hey, you know what, the guy who wrote that song, he stepped on my elbow one time," I told the girls.

"Really?" They faked their astonishment.

"Yeah, not the guys doing it there, they had the big hit with it, but the guy who wrote it." I added, "But I did see this band, Mountain, once too." I told them how I'd heard the power rock trio play their smash release live at the legendary Festival Express.

David Rea was the fellow who'd penned the tune - and who one time stepped on my elbow. He's an American folk artist and a heck of a guitar picker. He developed strong Canadian ties starting in the 1960s, working with such people as Gordon Lightfoot and Ian and Syliva.

I first heard him play at an afternoon pub session, when our university student union brought him in for a gig. He wowed us with some amazing guitar fireworks, including a shot at his own version of Mississippi Queen, played with a slide in rural blues style.

I saw him again by chance a year or so later when he dropped by the Riverboat coffeehouse on Toronto's Yorkville Avenue to play some accompaniment with Ramblin' Jack Elliott.

Now, I'm not one to pay any attention at all to video games. That evening, however, friends were over and I watched as people took turns singing along with one of the many musical numbers offered. They'd end up with a score following their performance.

"Let me try Mississippi Queen," I said when my turn came around.

I did my best to belt it out, as the lead singer in Mountain had. I didn't do well. I didn't even merit a score: the results simply registered "failure."

"Was I that bad?" I asked. That's when I began to notice that the whole game was about following some coloured bars, which appeared above the syllables of lyrics, and holding the notes the exact length of time. Singing quality, apparently, didn't matter.

When I got another opportunity, on a Rolling Stones number, I did better, being only somewhat stumped when the rolling instructions during instrumental breaks called for random noises. Somewhat redeemed, I mused, well, this has to be the absolute zenith where video games are concerned. It can't get a lot better than vocals and pretend guitar and drums playing along to classic rock tunes.

As for my elbow, I've mentioned the story a couple of times, usually to someone who knows who David Rea is. But noboby ever asks, well, where did you have your elbow that someone would step on it?

So here goes, the first time ever, in print no less.

It was the late 1970s at Summerfolk, the annual festival in Owen Sound, Ont. I was at the main stage show in early evening, just looking around between acts when I noticed David Rea, one of that year's performers, off to the side of the audience, scanning faces as if looking for someone. Then he started picking his way through the crowd. I was sitting half reclined, leaning back on my lower arms, when he happened right by our spot, his cowboy boot landing on my right elbow. He didn't notice, and it didn't smart a whole lot.

So there it is, nothing terribly untoward, no lasting injuries.

Now if some of his virtuoso guitar playing could somehow have rubbed off on me over it, I'd have gladly suffered a fracture. But such, alas, was not the case.

Alan Elliott is an editor with Transcontinental Media's Northern Nova Scotia Group. He can be reached by e-mail: aelliott@ngnews.ca