Texas has produced another great blues artist. Paul Byrd is becoming a name that is known not only in the big state, but internationally as well. Born in Wharton, Texas, about 50 miles Southwest of Houston, Paul grew up about five miles outside of Boling, a Texas town with a population of about 350. “I really grew up in the middle of no where and not ever really considered myself that much of a country boy. But the closest Dairy Queen to where I was, was twenty miles away and that`s a long way in Texas to be away from a Dairy Queen.”
Is there anything spectacular about your childhood that you want to share?
“Just blessed with a wonderful family, a close family. A lot of love in my family. I was blessed to grow up the way I did. I have a street named after me. My Grandpa took part of his original property and turned it into a subdivision. We lived there right in the middle of it, which originally was my Grandpa`s house before he moved down the street on the rest of the ranch, closer to the barn. All the streets in the subdivision are named after all my cousins, starting with the boys first. So, there is a Paul Wayne street.”
Tell me how you became interested in music.
“Well, I`ve always been around music since I was a small child. My amplifier that I play out of a lot, `68 Twin, was my Grandpa`s. My earliest memories are at family Christmas get-togethers where my Grandpa would pull his amplifier out of the closet and plug his accordion in and play for us.”
How did you learn and what made you start playing guitar?
“Well, I was four when Elvis died and Elvis played guitar. So, I wanted to play guitar, too. I saw Elvis on TV doing his thing in his gold suit on the trailer at the Louisiana Hay Ride. They were showing that clip and my Mom was crying. I didn`t really understand why she way crying and who this Elvis guy was, but I really liked his music and I liked what I saw of him on TV. I`d imitate Elvis and I had a wooden yardstick, of course three foot long, and I took me a pencil and a wood spool that I stuck on the easer end of the pencil and I put a cotton ball on the top of that and wrapped the whole thing in tin foil. I took masking tape and taped to the top of that. I`d stand in the living room and I was so small that I actually had to point the microphone down off the end of that yardstick to aim it at my mouth. So that`s what I started doing.”
“Just blessed with a wonderful family, a close family. A lot of love in my family. I was blessed to grow up the way I did. I have a street named after me. My Grandpa took part of his original property and turned it into a subdivision. We lived there right in the middle of it, which originally was my Grandpa`s house before he moved down the street on the rest of the ranch, closer to the barn. All the streets in the subdivision are named after all my cousins, starting with the boys first. So, there is a Paul Wayne street.”
Tell me how you became interested in music.
“Well, I`ve always been around music since I was a small child. My amplifier that I play out of a lot, `68 Twin, was my Grandpa`s. My earliest memories are at family Christmas get-
How did you learn and what made you start playing guitar?
“Well, I was four when Elvis died and Elvis played guitar. So, I wanted to play guitar, too. I saw Elvis on TV doing his thing in his gold suit on the trailer at the Louisiana Hay Ride. They were showing that clip and my Mom was crying. I didn`t really understand why she way crying and who this Elvis guy was, but I really liked his music and I liked what I saw of him on TV. I`d imitate Elvis and I had a wooden yardstick, of course three foot long, and I took me a pencil and a wood spool that I stuck on the easer end of the pencil and I put a cotton ball on the top of that and wrapped the whole thing in tin foil. I took masking tape and taped to the top of that. I`d stand in the living room and I was so small that I actually had to point the microphone down off the end of that yardstick to aim it at my mouth. So that`s what I started doing.”
“When I was seven my Mom bought me a guitar. She gave me guitar lessons and I started going to take guitar, but I learned more about playing pool than I did about playing guitar because the guy had the Mel Bay book, you know, in the guitar world Mel Bay is the most common, every day. Chet Atkins even wrote a song about it. But anyway, it was these real simple songs. He`d say, “Put your finger right here and play like this. OK, great! Now go home and practice that.” I`d go, “So, what is there to practice.” I never did practice. My Mom made me quit after only three lessons, or four lessons. Then seven years later, when I was fourteen, I had that old guitar and it was a child`s guitar. I went and got a music book and started teaching myself how to play. Of course, at that point I was playing rock-n-roll.”
“I kind of knew who Stevie Ray Vaughn was. I had one of his records, as a matter of fact. Stevie Ray`s In Step came out and they were making a big deal out of it. ‘It`s the long awaited new record from Stevie Ray and Double Trouble`. I was like, “Why did it take him so long to record a record and what`s the big deal here.” Then they played Crossfire which was the first single off of it and I was like, “Well, you know that`s OK, but after the build up, it wasn`t all that spectacular to me.” A couple of months went by and they started playing Tightrope, and I was like, “Man! That`s a great song!” So, I went and bought that record. When I was at A&M, I was in the guitar club and I met this guy that came in to do a clinic for us. I was hitting on his girlfriend, I didn`t know it though, and he came over and started playing Cold Shot. I was thinking to myself, “You know, that song is a really powerful song. I`ve heard it before and I like it.” And watching him play it, it seems to be relatively simple to play. It`s a simple song, not easy, but it was simple. It had a lot of power and feeling to it. The Guy wasn`t even a blues player. He played a lot of funk stuff. That night I went back to the dorm and borrowed a Stevie Ray record off my upper classman. I listened to it all night long and the next day I went back and bought Stevie Ray`s first two records. I started learning Stevie Ray songs. From there I started playing my first gigs in College Station at this place called Northgate Café every Thursday night. We had a jam session, well sort of a jam session. I would play with the guy, Ty Sutherland, who was actually the guy that was there giving the clinic that introduced me to Stevie Ray Vaughan. We became really close friends after that. I just went from there and here I am today.”
