The uncontested facts surrounding The Rock Legend of Don Harrison are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don Harrison was his real name. The\nlegend unfolded in a music classroom at Oregon City High School\nduring the 1979-80 school year. I was a sophomore and Don Harrison a\njunior and we were enrolled in a Beginning Guitar course taught by a\nyoung female teacher who favored Peter Paul and Mary and the folky\n\u201dBlackbird\u201d Beatles, not the \u201cGet Back\u201d rockers. There were\napproximately 12 other students in the course, all boys, and I have\nno recollection of any of them. Don is it. Don was rock. The legend\ninvolves Deep Purple’s 1973 rock classic \u201cSmoke on the Water,\u201d\nbut not all of it. Only its famous riff, a riff so monumental, so\ncolossal, holy, heavy duty, perhaps the greatest rock and roll riff\nof all time. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
-------------------------------------------\n-------------------------------------------\n-------------------------------------------\n------8-10_----8-11-10__------8-10_-8------\n---10-8-10_-10-8-11-10__---10-8-10_-8-10__-\n---10-------10-------------10---------10__-<\/pre>\n\n\n\n\nSmoke on the water \/ fire in the sky<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Rock Legend of Don Harrison is: Don\nHarrison played the immortal riff from \u201cSmoke on the Water\u201d every\n<\/em>class period of Beginning Guitar, he played it all<\/em> period\nlong, over and over, every day<\/em> of the semester, and Don\nHarrison never missed a day of class. He played only that riff and\nnothing else. That was it. He didn’t know how to play anything else,\nor he wouldn’t play anything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If that isn’t a rock legend, then rock\nlegends don’t exist. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smoke on the water \/ fire in the sky<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let us return to my youth and I will I\ntry to recall the details of The Rock Legend of Don Harrison with\naccuracy. It’s all a little hazy, imprecise, and I am going deep into\nthe vortex of my memory to get the story right and set the record\nstraight. Because what is a legend if it’s not true? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1979-80, I knew absolutely nothing\nabout rock. I didn’t own any rock records. I suppose my first\neducation in rock was watching Don Harrison live rock and roll right\nin front of me. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don was a big dude, long haired, and\nwore faded Levis and threadbare rock t-shirts to school every day. I\ndefinitely remember a Ramones t-shirt, because I’d never heard of the\nRamones. I can’t remember him ever wearing a coat or carrying a bag. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He hated disco and I recall many\ntirades against it. He once lavishly praised Rocket to Russia<\/em>\nand I thought he was talking about American Cold War policy. Turns\nout it was a Ramones’ record released in 1977. How he heard about it\nin Oregon City in that era seems impossible to reconstruct. Did we\nhave a record store in town then? No. Did Don find his way to Crystal\nShip or Music Millennium or For What It’s Worth record shops? He must\nhave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I believe Don played an electric\nguitar, yes it was electric, but I don’t recall the model. He didn’t\nuse an amp because the teacher wouldn’t allow it. The rest of us\nplayed cheap acoustic guitars provided by the school and sat up front\nfor instruction. Don sat toward the back, on the highest row of a\nclassroom constructed with risers for choral music. He towered over\nus as he riffed away\u2014The One and Only Riff. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smoke on the water \/ fire in the sky<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
You know, when I\nthink about it, Don nailed that riff. How could he not. He only\nplayed it over 32,000 times that semester if my math is right, and it\nis because my stepfather, a former high school math teacher crunched\nthe numbers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A nine second riff<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A 52-minute period<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Five periods a week<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eighteen weeks in a\nsemester<\/p>\n\n\n\n
= over 32,000 times<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smoke on the water \/ fire in the sky<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
If that isn’t a\nworld rock record of some kind, then I don’t know what a world rock\nrecord is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The guitar course consisted of the\nteacher sitting on a stool, holding a guitar, showing us chords,\nchord progressions, finger picking patterns, and playing and singing\nsongs we would try to learn and perform. I have no memory of what the\nteacher looked like but her name was Jeri, she insisted we call her\nby her first name, and she was incredibly kind and encouraging. She\nwould hand out mimeographs of chords and songs and we would get to\nchoose which songs to practice. For tests, individual students would\nretire with her to the office, which was glassed in on three sides,\nalmost like a recording studio, and play a song for her. She did not\nrequire singing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Occasionally, Jeri would have the class\nplay a song together and attempt singing the lyrics, which never went\nover too well with high school boys. The only ones I remember are:\n\u201cOn Top of Old Smoky,\u201d \u201cAmerica the Beautiful,\u201d and \u201cThis\nLand is Your Land.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not very rock and roll and Don never\njoined us. He just sat by himself and riffed away, perhaps dreaming\nof being in a rock and roll band that played only one song, but\nplayed the living shit out of it. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smoke on the water \/ fire in the sky<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have no idea how Jeri handled Don’s\neccentricity and I recall no public confrontations between them. He\ncertainly wasn’t a discipline problem and had perfect attendance,\nwhich is saying a lot for a rocker. I do recall him taking the\nsemester final. We all watched. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whether Don passed the course or not,\nwho knows? What a dilemma for a teacher! I suspect Jeri flunked him.\nHow could she not? I supposed if he had passed with a \u201cD-\u201d it\nwould have dimmed The Legend. A D- minus is hardly rock and roll. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For my semester final, I played and\nsung<\/em> Jimmy Buffet’s \u201cMargaritaville.\u201d I think I earned a \u201cB\u201d\nfor the course. I still can play the song by heart. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the semester, I lost track of Don\nHarrison. I don’t recall ever seeing him again and we never had\nanother class together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Is Don alive to refute or corroborate\nthis story? I don’t know and have conducted no research. I sense that\nany high school junior boy who played the \u201cSmoke on the Water\u201d\nriff 32,000 times in one semester is surely dead by now. If he’s\nalive and found Jesus or became a Yoga instructor, it would taint the\nlegend. In his death, rock lives. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As for the riff, I never learned how to\nplay it. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smoke on the water \/ fire in the sky<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,942],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-city","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5871"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5873,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5871\/revisions\/5873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}