BrothaRic Patton

Today I did somethin’ I don’t usually do.

I rode around with my guitar sittin’ right there in the front seat. Not in the trunk. Not in the back. Nah—riding shotgun like an old friend ridin' with me into somethin’ important. Felt right. Like the guitar needed to see the road with me. 'Cause I wasn’t just goin’ anywhere—I was headin’ to teach some youngins about the blues.

Now I ain’t talkin’ scales and charts and “This is B.B. King” kinda thing—nah, baby. I’m talkin’ about soul. About the way a guitar ain’t just an instrument. It's a voice. A living, breathin’ thing that cries, moans, and hollers just like you and me when we got somethin’ on our chest.

That’s what the blues is.

See, back in the day, when folks didn’t have much—not money, not freedom, not even a full belly—they had music. And that guitar became their mouth when the world tried to shut ‘em up. They bent those strings like they was bendin’ pain into poetry. One note could say, “I miss you,” or “I’m tired,” or “I ain’t gonna take it no more.” All without speakin’ a single word.

That’s what I want to teach these kids. Not just how to play—but how to feel. How to let their instrument speak when words fall short. That it’s okay to be emotional. To be loud. To be soft. To hurt. To shout with joy. And to use their instrument to tell the truth.

You ain’t gotta be perfect. You ain’t gotta play fast. But you do gotta mean it.

So I’m sittin’ in my car, strings hummin’ beside me, and I realize—this is the story I gotta tell 'em. That music ain’t about bein’ fancy. It’s about bein’ real. That a guitar solo ain’t just a bunch of notes—it’s a conversation with the soul. And when you get good enough, it starts talkin’ back.

I hope they hear that. I hope it sticks with ‘em. 'Cause if just one kid walks outta there today and thinks, “It’s okay to feel what I feel, and I can say it with sound,”—well, then I’ve done what I came to do.

And maybe, just maybe, that guitar in the front seat’ll ride along with them someday.

What about you—when did your instrument first speak for you?