Interview:
I would like to thank you for agreeing to do this interview, Merrell. You are a legendary figure of the American psychedelic movement and it's a real honor to talk with you about your music.
Firstly I would like to know what were some of your main influences as a young kid?
My father gave me an ukulele for my 11th birthday, he played guitar and banjo and taught me my first chords. He was a flight instructor and we lived in southern California. When I was around 14 years old we moved north to the Central California Coast. There I got a job picking strawberries with the migrant Mexican farm workers and saved enough money over the summer to buy my first electric guitar. I began practicing with a high school friend named Bill Dodd and we formed a little band, at first playing as a duo and we got a job playing at a theater during the intermission between the two movies. All of a sudden I became a local star with young girls screaming for me, this was around 1959. I liked a lot of styles of music both old and new and of course Elvis Presley influenced everyone during this period. I also listened to a lot of old blues and country music.
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