TJ Wheeler
January 23, 2009
Amazing blues and jazz musician.
Musical activist.
Guitar and vocalist extraordinaire.
These are all words that have been used to describe New Hampshire artist TJ Wheeler.
After hearing him perform at The Cornerstone Montessori School (http://www.cornerstoneschool.org) in Stratham as part of a week-long residency working with students about the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King and other incredibly important issues – as well as a ton of music thrown in – I’d have to call him just plain phenomenal! The school invited me to shoot the concert – here’s a selection of photos that just cannot do justice to the show he and the students put on. Click on a photo to see a larger version.
A friend of mine asked me about a guy I knew in the early ’70s before I moved away from Washington State to start a career. Isn’t Google a wonderful thing. Now I found this on Facebook. When I met TJ he lived in a little shack too close to a billy goat, in Suquamish, WA. He was a young man, barely out of his teens with a great talent, a great sense of humor. We spent a lot of time together and he showed me guitar licks. It’s really something to see him after all those years. Do you know how I can contact my old friend?
Tom Swan