Joe Elmo

Joe Elmo is a Woodstock, NY based songwriter and guitar player. I caught up with him at a mutual friend's home in Woodstock.

Joe started playing guitar when he was 17 years old. He was at a friend's house, he said, and his friend was playing the keyboard. There was a guitar in the corner and his friend suggested he pick it up.
"Nah," he replied. But then something changed and he decided to pick it up. He liked it, he really liked it. And he understood it. He could play. 

I asked him if he ever took lessons. He told me that after he picked up the guitar, he arranged to have a lesson with his cousin, who had played for a long time. He met with his cousin and arranged to take another lesson a few months later. When it was time for his second lesson, his cousin said he had nothing new to teach him: Joe could already play better than his cousin.

Joe plays by ear. He never learned to read music. But he did learn where all the notes are on the guitar. When I was jamming with him, he had a keen sense of music theory, including chord progressions (including 9ths, 7ths, walking bass, etc.) and he would call them to me so I could play along. When I started to call a chord progression, he corrected me right away when I mistakenly called a B flat chord a B minor. 

 "Things are going good," he tells me. He has a recording contract on the table right now with plans to tour Europe with his original music and band.
When I asked him who has influenced him, he lists off many of his friends as well as Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones.