Ed Manicom

I have been involved with the playing of music since I was 12 when my father gave me an old acoustic guitar with a badly warped neck and a promise if I learned to play the guitar, he would buy me a better one! That warped neck precluded learning much.

Not being able to use the guitar and sound like the songs I was trying to play, I soon started rudimentary writing of songs to fit the instrument as it was.

Later in my teens and 20s, I continued with the music, with better instruments and better results.

When I got saved at age 25, a Les Paul that had been a fixture in my life was sold for the bus ticket that took me to the place where I surrendered to Christ.

For several years after that I shied away from any personal involvement with making music. There were guitars around and I would strum a bit, but I wasn't sure the Lord wanted me to be as devoted a musician as I had been not until I directly received a song from Him.

One day, strumming on an acoustic, a set of chord progressions seemed to just come together, and after playing them a couple of times through, the words were right there . . .

I would quickly say my early influences were The Byrds, Bob Dylan, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones . . . this broadened quite a bit when I got older.

I found I listened to music as two listeners the music afficionado, and the songwriter.

For the music I write I would say Joni Mitchell, Bruce Cockburn, and later Jann Arden were influences.

Needless to say, the Bible influences my lyrics big time!

GUITARS Alvarez AD-60SC, Epiphone Dot, Epiphone Nighthawk

SOUND RE-ENFORCEMENT Crate Acoustic 125 Watt Telluride Amplifier; GT-8 Multi Effects Processor