ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

After hearing the Wailers' cover of Freddie King's "San-Ho-Zay" yesterday, I went looking for King's original and was only able to find it at YouTube. Fine, fair enough. I did happen to run across a version that's from the soundtrack to "Innermost Limits of Pure Fun". The film, by George Greenough, is pure seventies, the stoner surf flick that set the bar. Likewise, the soundtrack is pure seventies, and also stoner.

The big surprise is something else entirely. While the song is still "San-Ho-Zay", the reason for liking this version surpasses the reasons for the other versions combined. Any version. Because my faith in the future of music has been restored. It is the young guitarist at the top of this post, a girl named Kara, playing "San-Ho-Zay". After playing the main licks several times, she takes a lead, and then goes into a rhythm thing. She's all of nine years old. Her look at the end of it is priceless, a mix of pride for getting the good parts down, and embarrassment for kind of stumbling towards the end. Hoping against hope that she stuck with it, I clicked on the uploader's name to see if young guitarist Kara kept soldiering on. Apparently the uploader, one Guitarslinger32269, is a guitar teacher because there are tons of videos of students of all ages playing this song or that. I didn't sample many of them because I wanted to first see if this particular student kept with it. Watch the end of that video first video below and you'll see why. That look. Guess what? She did stick with it. There's another video of her playing another Freddie King song, "Hideaway", posted earlier this year, a year after the other clip. She got better, and a little more confident. This girl is going places, I tell you. She's got heart, determination, and stick-with-it-ness. I like that in a future guitar hero. Quote Guitarlinger32269, "This young lady has awesome potential, and is truly special". Here, here, my man Guitarslinger 33269! Here, here!

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Freddie King - San-Ho-Zay (streaming) at YouTube
The Farm - San-Ho-Zay mp3 at Aguarium Drunkard Go there to get it and a few other songs.
Watch:
Kara - San-Ho-Zay at YouTube April 2014
Kara - Hideaway at YouTube March 2015 
12/20/15: This just in: Kara's teacher let me know that she does another Freddie King song, uploaded just yesterday:
Kara - The Stumble at YouTube December 20, 2015
Visit:
Guitarslinger 32269's student guitarists at YouTube The teacher's channel