Harry the Guitar Player

Harry the Guitar Player is written by David Doucette at www.smokeystudios.ca

The question Harrys asks is: “Are people fundamentally alone? Do they feel eternally lonely?” It would answer much. Harry needs to write a song so he thinks back to his first love Anna Baker, a girl at school who like Harry read books. Her brother Alfred joins The Half-Snapped Elastic Band, Harry’s band at 15 years of age.

Jollimore comes off stage and sits with Harry at the Crybaby Bar. The bartender Calvin Swig watches the two, as they talk about old times. Jollimore tells Harry he will need his guitar back. Harry hasn't got it.

A Crybaby Visitor - A guitar player is in the audience and even though Harry has put the guitar out of tune, the guitar player gets up and dazzles the crowd - d dazzles the crowd.

Harry knew love. He was married to trapeze artist Trixi Almeida. They thrice circled a garbage can fire in Toronto and an all-consuming love arrived, with meaning and purpose. But, with a mustard seed of disunity came drought that brought the locusts and the acorn lunches.

Dracula asks Cinderella to dance. Harry watches the swiftness of cupid's arrow. Camus' absurdity is absurd when love pierces the heart. All is meaning, all is purpose, all is plans for a resurrected life - there before you.

Harry has a new gig, a couple of jazz numbers to open for a film premiere in Steel City, Smokey Studios is paying him 50 bucks to open the jazz documentary, ‘The Piano Tuner.’ Harry has to dress as John Voigt in Midnight Cowboy, Harry once partied with John in Malibu.

Harry is reaching the patrons of the Crybaby Bar with his own music. There is immediate attention, photographs and offers to record. Harry is jubilant and cautious but is also letting people in.

What is the relationship, the true relationship, between artist and muse? Harry realizes that he has always had a muse, after Lemonade enters his door at the Tarantula Arms. Harry is on stage at the Crybaby Bar where he promises never to sing a covering ever again. He will sing his own tunes come hell or high water. And he will start with, 'There's a Sadness Going Around.' But there on stage, haunted as if by demons that have come to remind him of some contract he signed, his mind goes to the faithful night at Jollimore's, the trailer with the blue wings down at the tides, the delta of Slow River.

The Hippie child Lemonade is outside Harry';s door at the Tarantula Arms one rainy night. She comes in and sits at his brown barrel chair and asks Harry how to identify a good man. Harry looks across the room and realizes that he has found his muse and the season of songwriting is upon him, once more.

Walking up Iron Street after a Crybaby gig - after K.O. shoots down the Cannonball, Harry recalls the night before he went on tour for the first time. It was with the band from Jollimore’s trailer, The Holy Molies. Harry was 14 years old but he attended the best educational institution there is in music - the road.

Harry sings ‘The Cannonball’ but doesn’t make big splash with Toronto record producer K.O. Biggs. K.O. will visit the Crybaby Bar tomorrow night but Harry had better ‘Put on the Ritz’. Walking home, Harry recalls those years past when he went into Jollimore’s trailer and saw for the first time a live band. He knew what he wanted to do with his life just not the course on which it would take him.Harry and Clarissa leave the trash can fire and enter the trailer with the blue wings.

Harry goes further into the world of the guitar and finds mystery, intrigue and danger.On his bike, with the Banner Gibson guitar over his shoulder, Harry drives down to Slow River when his pant cuff gets caught in his bike chain and he falls in front of Jollimore’s trailer. An exotic barefoot woman comes out to the road to pull him off. ‘I’m Clarissa. They call me, Baby Fingers, but you can see, these aren’t a baby’s fingers. They’re a woman’s.’ Harry is stunned by her beauty and goes down the road with Clarissa to the old rusted trailer with the blue victory wings.

The guitar is too valuable and needs to go back to its owner. Harry goes down to the off-limits Slow River to return the guitar to Jollimore. No one he knows has ever been down to Slow River.Harry the Guitar Player is created by David Doucette and produced at Smokey Studios.http://smokeystudios.ca

Where is Jollimore? He hasn’t missed a day at the graveyard in 30 years. Father Don comes to investigate. Harry says he doesn’t know where he is. ‘It has to do with that guitar!’ says Father Don. ‘All the strife of the world comes from that guitar!’

Harry learns the graveyard chords from Jolimore, who breaks into song down by the gravestones, 'The Cannonball'. Father Don dresses them down for bringing music to the House of the Lord and onto the fields of the dead.Harry the Guitar Player is brought to you by Smokey Studios:https://smokeystudios.ca

In his first job at a graveyard, Harry meets the peculiar character Jajoe Jollimore, who tells Harry he plays guitar. Harry has no interest in the guitar. This prompts Jollimore to bring his own to the graveyard where he teaches Harry how to play.Harry the Guitar Player is written and produced by David Doucette at Smokey Studios.https://smokeystudios.ca

Back to the graveyard, where it came from for Harry. Ja-joe Jollimore was the graveyard worker that introduced Harry to the guitar. Jollimore discloses to Harry that he is a guitar player. Harry has no interest in guitars. This distresses Jollimore.‘Harry the Guitar Player’ is written by David Doucette and recorded at Smokey Studios.https://smokeystudios.ca

Back to the graveyard, where it came from for Harry. Ja-joe Jollimore was the graveyard worker that introduced Harry to the guitar. Jollimore discloses to Harry that he is a guitar player. Harry has no interest in guitars. This distresses Jollimore.Harry the Guitar Player is written and produced by David Doucette at Smokey Studios: https://smokeystudios.ca

Harry is up against it. He rents a tiny room at the Tarantula Arms with a shared bath down at the end of the hall. His only income is his guitar gig at the Crybaby Bar. He has a plan, though. He will make a come-back with a song he never recorded, one that he was saving for an emergency, one that says it all, 'The Cannonball'Harry the Guitar Player is written and produced by David Doucette at Smokey Studios: https://smokeystudios.ca