Old Enough to Forget

As a kid Liona Boyd was indeed "the First Lady of the Guitar." She was a player's player, and was considered a great beauty. I remember seeing her on Johnny Carson, and at the time I just thought she was kind of cool, not realizing at the time that few classical guitarists ever performed on his show, let alone a Canadian classical guitar player. Liona was also very active in musical education. I grew up in a small town in Northern British Columbia and one day Liona Boyd showed up at our school and she didn't speak to us in the big gymnasium, she spoke to individual classes in our small auditorium. I honestly don't remember much about her talk, other than she was there, and she was accessible and gracious, despite a few unruly kids who wouldn't shut up while she played (she did call them out, and I thought that was cool). While she was in town she also played a concert at our local theatre, which was a great venue that seated just over 700 people, but felt huge...