Matt Creamer

When I was 9 years old, my grandmother bought me my first guitar.  She did so because though I loved to sing, my vocal cords were being calloused by speaking and singing (and yelling!!) in Arabic the language of the Palestinian people with whom I had been living since age 5.  My Father administered a hospital between Bethlehem and Hebron on the West Bank. So I began learning classical guitar as an outlet for my musical expression. In the meantime the previous damage to my vocal cords eventually went away.

 

A few years later when I was 12, we were back in the states for a visit and I attended a summer camp in northern Ohio, where I heard a young man playing and singing “Rocky Mountain High,” by John Denver. I think I had heard one other song by John on the radio, but this was the first experience of his music up close and personal.  Before we returned to Palestine/Israel, a lady from that young man’s home church bought me my first John Denver album-an 8-track tape of his Greatest Hits, volume 1!  I began trying to learn to sing and play his songs as I continued to study classical guitar in Jerusalem. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I met a friend from Kentucky living in Bethlehem, who also played fiddle, and he suggested we play John Denver and a few other artists on the streets of Jerusalem to help pay for our guitar lessons! We played in front of the Old City walls at the Jaffa gate and in modern Jerusalem on Saturday nights after Sabbath was over.  And we quickly discovered we weren’t the only folks in the world that loved John’s music!  At that time “Country Roads” was one of the most popular songs in the world from Aspen to Shanghai and even in Jerusalem!  I even tried translating “Annie’s Song” into Arabic!

Over the years my love for John’s music grew and grew as I collected every John Denver album I could get my hands on 8-track, cassette, and vinyl!  I tried to learn it all!  The warmth of his voice and simplicity of his melodies and poems left a lifelong mark in my heart.  This led me to begin writing and composing my own songs and subsequently to major in vocal performance upon my return to the States at 18.

 

In an age of division, chaos, violence, and despair, seems like there is a desire to return to simpler times.  Bringing back John’s beautiful simplicity and message of love and community is our little way of “brightening up some days” and helping folks make it through some “cold and lonely nights” just like his “Ole Guitar” did for him.

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