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This project was made possible by funding through the Canadian Culture Online Strategy and the Heritage Policy Branch of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Canadian Heritage

Herb Ellis

Herb Ellis discusses the importance of music during the depression

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Herb Ellis remembers the first jazz bands he saw

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Herb Ellis discusses his time with Oscar Peterson

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Transcription

Q: “When you were a kid it was depression times, right? Would it be that the guitar was around the house and was your entertainment?”

A: Herb Ellis: “It was around the house. It was my entertainment because it didn't have, you know, the community, there were just a few people there and they were sometimes long away.”

Interviewer: “West Texas, is it?”

Herb Ellis: “Northwest Texas near...

Interviewer: “Northwest Texas.”

Herb Ellis: “About forty miles from Dallas, way up the country. So the guitar was my friend. I mean, you know, I didn't have many people there or hardly anyone to play with, you know, except when I went to school. So it was two reasons, well, more than two, I liked it. It was something to occupy and kept me interested and I also knew, I knew, mind you at an early age, that I was going to be a guitar player when I grew up and I was going to be good. I was going to travel the world. I mean, I really knew these things as a kid.”