Pioneer Pride: Part 6-The Legend of Don Harrison
The uncontested facts surrounding The Rock Legend of Don Harrison are:
Don Harrison was his real name. The legend unfolded in a music classroom at Oregon City High School during the 1979-80 school year. I was a sophomore and Don Harrison a junior and we were enrolled in a Beginning Guitar course taught by a young female teacher who favored Peter Paul and Mary and the folky ”Blackbird” Beatles, not the “Get Back” rockers. There were approximately 12 other students in the course, all boys, and I have no recollection of any of them. Don is it. Don was rock. The legend involves Deep Purple’s 1973 rock classic “Smoke on the Water,” but not all of it. Only its famous riff, a riff so monumental, so colossal, holy, heavy duty, perhaps the greatest rock and roll riff of all time.
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Smoke on the water / fire in the sky
The Rock Legend of Don Harrison is: Don Harrison played the immortal riff from “Smoke on the Water” every class period of Beginning Guitar, he played it all period long, over and over, every day of the semester, and Don Harrison never missed a day of class. He played only that riff and nothing else. That was it. He didn’t know how to play anything else, or he wouldn’t play anything else.
If that isn’t a rock legend, then rock legends don’t exist.
Smoke on the water / fire in the sky
Let us return to my youth and I will I try to recall the details of The Rock Legend of Don Harrison with accuracy. It’s all a little hazy, imprecise, and I am going deep into the vortex of my memory to get the story right and set the record straight. Because what is a legend if it’s not true?
In 1979-80, I knew absolutely nothing about rock. I didn’t own any rock records. I suppose my first education in rock was watching Don Harrison live rock and roll right in front of me.
Don was a big dude, long haired, and wore faded Levis and threadbare rock t-shirts to school every day. I definitely remember a Ramones t-shirt, because I’d never heard of the Ramones. I can’t remember him ever wearing a coat or carrying a bag.
He hated disco and I recall many tirades against it. He once lavishly praised Rocket to Russia and I thought he was talking about American Cold War policy. Turns out it was a Ramones’ record released in 1977. How he heard about it in Oregon City in that era seems impossible to reconstruct. Did we have a record store in town then? No. Did Don find his way to Crystal Ship or Music Millennium or For What It’s Worth record shops? He must have.
I believe Don played an electric guitar, yes it was electric, but I don’t recall the model. He didn’t use an amp because the teacher wouldn’t allow it. The rest of us played cheap acoustic guitars provided by the school and sat up front for instruction. Don sat toward the back, on the highest row of a classroom constructed with risers for choral music. He towered over us as he riffed away—The One and Only Riff.
Smoke on the water / fire in the sky
You know, when I think about it, Don nailed that riff. How could he not. He only played it over 32,000 times that semester if my math is right, and it is because my stepfather, a former high school math teacher crunched the numbers:
A nine second riff
A 52-minute period
Five periods a week
Eighteen weeks in a semester
= over 32,000 times
Smoke on the water / fire in the sky
If that isn’t a world rock record of some kind, then I don’t know what a world rock record is.
The guitar course consisted of the teacher sitting on a stool, holding a guitar, showing us chords, chord progressions, finger picking patterns, and playing and singing songs we would try to learn and perform. I have no memory of what the teacher looked like but her name was Jeri, she insisted we call her by her first name, and she was incredibly kind and encouraging. She would hand out mimeographs of chords and songs and we would get to choose which songs to practice. For tests, individual students would retire with her to the office, which was glassed in on three sides, almost like a recording studio, and play a song for her. She did not require singing.
Occasionally, Jeri would have the class play a song together and attempt singing the lyrics, which never went over too well with high school boys. The only ones I remember are: “On Top of Old Smoky,” “America the Beautiful,” and “This Land is Your Land.”
Not very rock and roll and Don never joined us. He just sat by himself and riffed away, perhaps dreaming of being in a rock and roll band that played only one song, but played the living shit out of it.
Smoke on the water / fire in the sky
I have no idea how Jeri handled Don’s eccentricity and I recall no public confrontations between them. He certainly wasn’t a discipline problem and had perfect attendance, which is saying a lot for a rocker. I do recall him taking the semester final. We all watched.
Whether Don passed the course or not, who knows? What a dilemma for a teacher! I suspect Jeri flunked him. How could she not? I supposed if he had passed with a “D-” it would have dimmed The Legend. A D- minus is hardly rock and roll.
For my semester final, I played and sung Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville.” I think I earned a “B” for the course. I still can play the song by heart.
After the semester, I lost track of Don Harrison. I don’t recall ever seeing him again and we never had another class together.
Is Don alive to refute or corroborate this story? I don’t know and have conducted no research. I sense that any high school junior boy who played the “Smoke on the Water” riff 32,000 times in one semester is surely dead by now. If he’s alive and found Jesus or became a Yoga instructor, it would taint the legend. In his death, rock lives.
As for the riff, I never learned how to play it.
Smoke on the water / fire in the sky