{"id":139,"date":"2015-10-19T23:46:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-19T23:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulbibbins.com\/?page_id=139"},"modified":"2019-01-12T05:22:46","modified_gmt":"2019-01-12T05:22:46","slug":"biography","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/paulbibbins.com\/index.php\/biography\/","title":{"rendered":"Biography"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Paul<\/a>Paul Bibbins<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n

I\u2019m originally from New Orleans, but in late 2005 Hurricane Katrina uprooted me to Texas; and I\u2019ve lived in the Dallas area ever since.<\/p>\n

The lyrics of my songs never come from personal experiences\u2026it\u2019s just not in me to write songs that way. If I tried writing a song about some personal experience or life experience, it would probably sound contrived or forced. As a result, listening to the lyrics of my songs won\u2019t tell you much about me, my beliefs, or my thought processes.<\/p>\n

My guitar playing odyssey began in 1973 when I was 17 years old. That\u2019s when the guitar-playing bug bit me. I hadn\u2019t played any other musical instruments before then; and my initial plan was to become a bass player. But when I heard the funk rock lead guitar playing of Omar Mesa in \u201cFencewalk\u201d by Mandrill, and Ernie Isley in \u201cSummer Breeze\u201d by the Isley Brothers, and I heard all those great 1970\u2019s guitar-driven rock \u2018n roll radio hits, such as \u201cSmoke on the Water\u201d by Deep Purple, with Ritchie Blackmore burning it up on lead and rhythm guitar\u2026the choice was made. It would be electric guitar for me\u2026or nothing at all.<\/p>\n

After saving up my pennies, I went out and bought my first electric guitar; which was a cheap no-name hollow body guitar that I found at a local New Orleans music store. I started out playing guitar right-handed for the first six months; but then I bought a Fender Stratocaster guitar, and switched to playing left-handed\u2026ala Jimi Hendrix. I still play guitar left-handed today; but I am right-handed.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all pretty normal stuff; except for me switching from playing guitar right-handed to playing left-handed. But here\u2019s where my story really veers off the well-traveled road: The first few years of playing any given musical instrument are the formative years where you form the core of your skills on your chosen instrument. My formative years were spent in essentially my own little musical cocoon. For the first five years after I picked up the guitar, I literally stayed caged up in my room, and all that I played on my guitar was whatever musical ideas and guitar riffs that came out of my head\u2026good or bad.<\/p>\n

Musicians typically are at their most creative point when they are young. Thankfully I had enough common sense to tape record myself playing all those songs and guitar riffs that I created during my beginning five years of playing guitar. I had an Akai reel-to-reel tape recorder at that time\u2026and lots of reels of blank tape; so I recorded damn near everything that I could. Some of my best songs were created during that time. In the 1980\u2019s I transferred all of those recordings from reel-to-reel, onto cassette tapes. Over the years I\u2019ve written many songs\u2026but without a doubt, my most wildly creative material dates back to the 1970\u2019s. I still have those old cassette tapes\u2026with a lot more songs and ideas on them; just waiting for me to fully develop them and put them out to the public!<\/p>\n

During those first five years I never tried to learn songs off of records or albums, or use a metronome, or jam with other musicians. So in essence the formative years of my guitar-playing life were void of the rules of timing or song structure. I had no real sense of timing; whether it be 4\/4 time, or otherwise. I played everything in free-form fashion. There was no method to my madness back then. I was just young, with no real musical goals or aspirations at that time, and totally clueless about the value of learning from others, and from records, and on working on your musical timing.<\/p>\n

Although I wasn\u2019t into trying to learn Hendrix songs at that time, I did however, listen constantly to Hendrix albums. So Jimi Hendrix crept into everything that I did, without me even trying. Jimi remains my primary musical influence to this day!<\/p>\n

In this life though, one thing almost always leads to another\u2026 That whole process of me playing guitar without any musical boundaries (timing or otherwise) during those initial five years, is exactly what led to me having a musical sound that I can call my own; and which also led to odd-timing being an integral and signature part of my guitar playing and song writing. Several musicians have told me that the odd-timing in my musical compositions sounds natural, not contrived. I\u2019d have to say emphatically that odd-timing comes to me naturally because that is the arena that I played guitar in from the very beginning.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never had guitar teachers, or people who\u2019ve mentored me on guitar. It\u2019s always been the case that I just want to figure things out for myself on guitar\u2026which, in the big scheme of things, helped to stamp my musical sound as my own.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until later on, for purposes of doing cover songs with my various power trios, that I got into learning from the records and albums of musicians like Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Robert Cray; all of which brought me into the world of traditional musical timing (4\/4, 3\/4, etc)\u2026which was an absolute necessity.<\/p>\n

A real benefit that I especially got from learning Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn records was that I learned how to project power in my guitar playing; how to really attack my guitar, and make my guitar riffs and solos really mean something!<\/p>\n

For better or for worse, I wear all the hats on my albums: song writer, guitarist, bassist, vocalist, producer, recording engineer, mixing & mastering engineer, and drum programmer. I can\u2019t play a lick of drums\u2026but I can do some damage with a drum machine.<\/p>\n

The rock-n-roll power trio is my thing, or thang, as some would say. But the power trios that I put together over the years never lasted for very long, or went anywhere. I have been a 9 to 5 working stiff all my life. I currently work in IT as a Network Engineer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Bibbins I\u2019m originally from New Orleans, but in late 2005 Hurricane Katrina uprooted me to Texas; and I\u2019ve lived in the Dallas area ever since. The lyrics of my songs never come from personal experiences\u2026it\u2019s just not in me to write songs that way. If I tried writing a song about some personal experience…<\/p>\n

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