elvis costello-- as someone growing up in east LA, and seeing elvis costello in some music video (probably pump it up www.youtube.com/watch ) ... it made being stuck at home on a friday night completely worth it... i had never in my life seen anything like that, and had serious doubts that i would ever see anything like that if i stayed in east LA... helped me make the decision to get the hell out... ended up going to berkeley and staying in san francisco (and i saw elvis costello at least two dozen times over the years)

her name is Penny WIlkerson, of Seagoville Texas, my best friend, a punk rock girl in a podunk one horse town or rednecks and cowboy wannabes, long spiky black punk hair in the 80s, an incredible laugh and she told me to " become myself" she was an inspiration to me because she cared not a whit what people thought of her, she was intellignet, kind and one of the best friends ive ever had the honor of knowing. i was a nerd to the Nth degree, a loner and a freak, a wanderer that never settled and always the new kid, and she gave me the confidence to be myself by accepting me completely and un-conditionally, a thing i never thought id ever see and ahve seen only once since in my 37 years of life.
ill love her forever and every friend i have will know her name.

Perry Ferrell

Inspiration came in the form of a beautiful woman who was past her prime in years. In those days I didn't have much contact with people over 50 or so. When I was on the island of Kauai I stayed for awhile at a sort of permanent camp called Taylor's Camp that was on the beach and in the woods in back of the beach. It was a sort of hippy camp. There was a beautiful older woman there whom I never met but was in awe of. She had long gray hair, a fit body, and moved with an elegance and confidence that only someone who is at home with themselves can do. The people at this camp wore very little if anything at all, and she was beautiful. It didn't matter what age she was.

I was very impressed by her ageless beauty and this woman has remained an inspiration to me ever since. Now that I am approaching my later years, I still think of her. I'd like to have her kind of beauty as I grow older.

My son.. because with him I now have a reason to ...live... accomplish ....and inspire.

The Beatles.
When I was 12 years old, my teacher in music class used to bring records in on Fridays for listening, a wide variety of stuff.
One day she brought in a 45 single of "I Want To Hold Your Hand". It blew my mind, this was the happiest music I'd ever heard in my life, and I love the group to this day.
Their music, philosophy, humor, insight, spiritualness, and humaness has always been eye-opening to me, even to this day.
Because of the Beatles I'm a musician, I have a love of music the world over because they opened my ears to many musical forms.

The first name that comes to mind surprises me a little, because I haven't though about him much for a long time, but then I remembered writing a "theme" in high-school English about people who had influenced me, or something like that, and I know I had written about him even back then. His name is Joe Wise, and he was a very well known liturgical musician--in the '60s and '70s, especially--in the Catholic Folk Mass movement.

I began singing when I was a little kid, in the boys' choir from age eight. When I was 14 or so I began playing the guitar, and soon after, I joined my church's folk choir. I guess it was because of that that I had the opportunity, through my church, to see Mr. Wise speak at, probably, the nearby Catholic high school (which I did not attend--I did parochial school only through the eighth grade). I seem to remember that it included both concert material and Q&A for liturgical musicians.

I actually don't remember much about the day *except* for the inspiration I took away from it. Because his recorded music was very popular in Catholic circles while I was in school, I was familiar with his rich, open baritone, but it was his manner that I remember--and what I have come to understand as his charisma... I wouldn't let myself know it at the time, but I was gay and had a crush on him. He was (and continues to be, I see from his web page www.joeandmaleitawise.com/ ), a handsome dark-featured man, but it was more than mere handsomeness that gripped me: his eyes had a really rare gentleness and depth about them, a depth that I was reminded of immediately when I visited his site just now.

Perhaps the coolest thing about that day was that when I went up to talk to him during one of the breaks, he let me play his 12-string for a minute! I was truly agog--*nobody* let me play their 12-strings in those days, not that I knew too many people who owned them. The generosity he showed me is not to be taken for granted: not everybody will let a stranger, especially a teenager, play their guitars, especially their 12-string guitars, which are notoriously hard to keep in tune. But he did, freely and naturally, and though I've rarely thought of him lately, I have to admit that it was he who set the example to me that I now follow when I let young people play my (Martin--expensive!) 12-string when they ask--at least, when they ask politely. Notwithstanding the fact that my guitar stays in excellent tune even at times when it shouldn't, those kids, I believe, owe thanks for my generosity to Joe Wise.

I left Roman Catholicism in 1979 and have sojourned over a wide spiritual spectrum since then before settling into my current bivouac in Pantheism and Spiritual Humanism, but until recently (when I returned to writing and took up collage art), folk, acoustic, and liturgical music have been driving forces in my life. For example, I have a collection of a couple hundred church hymnals from all kinds of traditions and periods of time, including many editions from the series of Catholic missals that introduced Joe's music to the American post-Vatican-II Church.

And of course as I type I have one of his songs running through my head...

So yeah, I guess you can call that inspiration.