I was born Faron Sebastian Collins in Dallas,Texas - August 7,1956. My first name given by my mother and my middle name by my dad after my uncle William "Bill" Blessing. He also gave me the nickname Bo after Bobo Olson a prize fighter who was fighting the night I was born. My dad gave me my first guitar, an old f-hole archtop Kay guitar.
I was 5-6 years old, and the guitar was bigger than me and almost impossible to play (it was equipped with some very rigid Black Diamond strings.) There wasn't a lot of music on the radio at that time and I use to listen to my dad and moms records.
My dad's records were some Hank Williams, and Hank Snow albums. My mom's records were Roy Acuff, Sonny James, Floyd Cramer, and Faron Young. and she had a 45 of Duane Eddy and his "Twangy" guitar
I had a few 45's,mainly kids stories and Christmas songs. But I used to listen to my parents records, and most of my early musical influences came from there. And then came the music the Beatles played on Ed Sullivan, it was like magic (I had never heard Rock and Roll before) and Beatlemania got in full swing. Everyone including myself wanted to learn to play the guitar (electric guitar). My first Beatles record was The Beatles Second Album, it had She Loves You, Mr. Postman and Long Tall Sally on it. A friend down the street had the first album Meet The Beatles and talked me into getting that one also. I got Beatles '65, and got intrigued by the feedback on I Feel Fine. I also had Day Tripper on a 45, I used to spend hours spinning those records and singing along with them. I had a Rolling Stones 45, Paint It Black, and a 45 of Paul Revere and the Raiders called Kicks. I also bought albums by the cover pictures at that time, if they had a cool looking cover I would ask my mom to buy it. One such album was Al Caiola-Tuff Guitar English Style, I was probably the only kid on my block with that album, the cover had a English Bulldog in cartoon form playing a guitar. And the record was fantastic, again I wore the grooves out of the record. Then I found an unusual type of music I guess you could call it car music.The albums had pictures of hot rods on them and the songs had burnouts and motor noises on them. One of the first albums I got was Hot Rod Alley by Jerry Kole and the Strokers, I remember My Model "A", 409 Woodie and Little Black Coupe. I also had The Blasters record called Sounds of the Drags. Some of the songs were Hot Rod Center, Don't Count On The Looks, and Little Willys Dragster.
While I was in grade school, I went to a open house fair at the school one night, and they had a cakewalk. The prizes for the cakewalk were records, 45's to be exact, and the game was easy enough, so I played and ended up with a huge cache of 45's.
I got a Cream 45 of Badge, a Sam and Dave 45, a Junior Wells 45 of It's A Man Down There and some unusual but very good records like The Magic Lanterns.I used to go to sock hops at the local skating rink and watch the local bands. One very memorable group was the Southwest F.O.B.,with band members John Ford Coley and Dan Seals (England Dan).
They were on the charts during the Acid Rock period with a song called "Smell Of Incense". My mom had been buying me electric guitars for Christmas and Birthdays for several years, and with the help of a couple of friends I had learned a few chords and a song or two. But with the equipment I had, and the knowledge of the guitar,
it didn't avail much and as a result the guitars stayed in the closets mostly. While I was in Jr. high school, I joined the school Orchestra and learned to play violin. I was taught to read sheet music and we played classical songs, and I never really knew if the songs were being played correctly because I'd never heard them for the most part we just followed the conductor.
But we played the Christmas programs and those songs we had heard before, and they were easy to tell what you were doing with them. And then of course there were those of us who would get in the back of the room and turn our violins into fiddles and start playing hillbilly music. In the late 60's,I met my grandfather Fred's brother, William "Willie" Seiler.
Uncle Willie was a fiddle maker and a Blacksmith of German descent, he hand carved fiddles in Yorktown, Texas.
Uncle Willie took part in many fiddler's contest, and in Yorktown's Western Days he was chairman of the Old Fiddlers' contest.
I wanted him to carve me a fiddle, but as far as I know he never completed it. But he inspired me to build my on in recent years and I have built three and one of them Aria can be heard on That Moonlit River. I Had Heard Cream's - Sunshine Of Your Love by this time and the guitar seemed really powerful, and though I was playing the violin at the time I still wanted to play guitar.Then I happened across Jimi Hendrix - Cry Of Love with some very powerful songs, In From The Storm, Angel, and Belly Button Window, and Astro Man and Ezy Ryder.This was the first Jimi Hendrix record I'd ever bought, which started a long influence in style of music. By this time I was a teenager in high school and had Led Zepplin on my 8-track, and driving around in my Red '66 G.T.O. hearing the riffs of Layla screaming across my radio and more influence in style. Shortly after I left school I went to Colorado for awhile and I heard the Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar Babies album
and it made me want to get back to Texas and find my guitars.
I returned to Texas but my guitars had long since been sold,
but I bought a Vox Phantom VI and a Fender Twin Reverb amplifier,
the Vox played okay but the Fender amp was a little to clean for what I wanted to do.
But I started to play 2nd guitar in a band,
after several incarnations, I ended up fronting a three piece band playing Hendrix, Winter and music as such. It was then I wrote my first song "Rockin' Saturday Night" which spelled the end of the band and started me on a solo career.
.JPG)
