1. How old were you when you first started playing guitar?

I was seven years old when I first started playing guitar, but didn't really take it seriously until I was 14. I started as a “rocker,” but started getting into Jazz in high school and college. After college I played in all kinds of different bands from Jazz to Rock to R&B to Funk, and even was a television session guitarist for many years.

 

2. Who was/is your biggest musical inspiration?

For Jazz, I would say it was Pat Metheny, George Benson, Wes Montgomery, Larry Carlton, and Lee Ritenour. For Rock, it was Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, and Eddie Van Halen. For Blues, it was Stevie Ray Vaughan, and for R&B/Funk, it was Prince, Earth Wind and Fire, Stevie Wonder and Nile Rogers.

 

3. Where do you make your home?

I live in Orange County, California, just south of LA.

 

4. Do you have any pets?

Unfortunately, we just had to put down Nika, our American Eskimo boy dog. He was 15 years old and having a lot of trouble breathing. We are getting a new puppy who is four weeks old, still with his mother, and we will take him home in another four weeks.

 

5. What is the best concert/gig you have ever done?

So many great ones, from playing jazz with my band at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Houston opening up for the Rippingtons in front of 10,000 people, to playing huge jazz festivals in exotic places all across the US and Europe, to playing in stadiums with rock bands opening up for Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac

 

6. What is the best concert you have ever attended?

Well, they used to have this great jazz series every summer at the Greek Theater in LA, and I saw Pat Metheny and Al Jarreau there under the stars on a warm summer night. Doesn't get too much better than that.

 

7. Do you have an all-time favourite song or album?

Wow, hard to pick just one, and it would depend on what genre we are talking about, but it might be the Travels album from Pat Metheny, or the Emotion and Commotion album from Jeff Beck, or any album from Wes Montgomery for that matter, or just about any Sting record… probably because I heard those recently and they are top of mind, but so many more.

8. What musician would you still most like to work with?

Sting, Seal, Lyle Mays if he was still with us.

 

9. If you weren't a musician what would you be?

I can't imagine not being a musician, but I guess I would've made a pretty good actor. My parents always thought I would follow in my dad's footsteps and be a physical scientist/engineer because I was always really good at math and science in school, but I think I was always more drawn to the arts.

 

10. What is your favourite thing about Vancouver?

The people and the beauty.

~Vickie van Dyke

Midday Host