Christopher Scott Wilson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biography of Christopher Scott Wilson
Singer, Songwriter\Musician

 

Picture taken 2015
I was born in south Memphis Tennessee, home of the blues. We have the famous Sun studio’s & the famous old cobble stones on river side drive, cruises on the Mississippi queen river boats, Graceland home of Elvis, the Pyramid bass pro shop, Beal street & our famous Barbi-Q as well as the famous Dyers fried burgers. I spent the first three years of my life on Hackberry street in westwood, got a sister she’s the oldest and two older brothers! I’m the baby, lol. Most of my family is musically inclined. If you bring one us an instrument we never seen, we’ll play something on it!
We moved to Racoon Lake in Indiana when I was 3, I almost died there on a piece of butter scotch, I think maybe this is why I had a learning disability when I was growing up, I really saw things backwards. I even wrote things down backwards lol. Sometime after Indiana we moved to back to Memphis to Wilson rd. I think I was 4. Later on in life I worked for Wilson, lived on Wilson & of course my last name was Wilson so I was very easy to find! When I met girls I would just say “I live on Wilson my last name is Wilson & I work for Wilson” & they would easily look me up! Lol
I remember being the first one off the bus, on a bus full of kids from school and one day all the kids were screaming as we pulled up to my house on Wilson & there were fire trucks everywhere. The house had caught on fire! Sadly our family dog didn’t survive but she barked enough that she woke up my sister and pretty much saved my sisters life. The dog was somehow locked up in the storage room. Needless to say I was the talk of the school for most of the year! I think I was 5 or 6 & in the first grade! We lived in some apartments while the house was rebuilt! Lots of memories there.
I love to go to places I’ve never been or seen before in my life. Beautiful scenery most of the time is all I need for some inspiration to write a new song! Love the ocean/beaches, mountains & wild life everything outdoors. Love the water & most sports.

 

I think I loved music before I could walk. When I was 3 I use to get my Dads guitar and pretend to play & make up songs! My family would just laugh. It was cute enough my family got a tape recorder & recorded me in the next room. I have the cassette tape recording of it somewhere. It went something like I love pigs & pigs love corn lol. I pretty much taught myself how to play the acoustic guitar. My brother Greg taught me my abc’s but mostly I remember he gave me a Fender long neck bass & a sun bass rig when I was 9, it was a sun head with a two 15 inch speakers in a sun cabinet.
My Dad wrote many songs & was very good musician, singer/rhythm guitarist. Before I was born he was on TV channel 13 WHBQ the George Kline Dance party/ talent show. Rolland James was pushing Dads 45 with Dads song sweet Cindy Ann. Dad grew up in Memphis I use to go to his neighborhood Fort Pickering reunion. He and some of his other friends use to buy Elvis Cokes when he was poor & one time gave him gas money when he ran out of gas! They were Elvis’s real friends. They were not bought & paid for in any kind of way!
He continued to know Elvis when Elvis became famous. Some of the guys Elvis grew up with from the neighborhood would go visit Elvis from time to time! Elvis wanted them to come with him on tour many times but they were family Men & gave it no consideration! I’m not sure why or how but Elvis never knew Dad played music. One night Dad was heading out to play music and was about to start playing out and she said this kind of life is not the environment I want to raise kids in. If you go then I won’t be here when you get back. So that was the end of Dads music career. When Elvis found out that Dad wrote songs when Dad was visiting one day. Elvis said I hear you got some songs you wrote Ken. He said, bring them to me & I will use them even if I don’t like them, so I guess pride stepped in and Dad said if he can’t make it on his own then he don’t want to make it,

Dad did open up a studio called Ez pickin’s years later. I think it was 1985. But with tryin to run the studio & a construction company it was just too much. So he had to let the studio go! I wish I’d been interested in recording and learning about Recording. But I was too busy jamming & chasing girls, Lol. I have a cd somewhere of an original band I was in called “Rain” that recorded at my Dads studio. We played Southaven spring fest in 1993 got a dvd of that, I remember it was spring time & one of our songs was called spring breeze & when we went on stage to play it was so windy that the big giant air balloon of the spuds Mackenzie dog was just shaking violently that he just looked really pissed off, Lol. We had to tape the drums down to keep them from blowing off, lol. Those were good times.

When I was 14 I was in a band with my cousin called “Wild Child”. We played the battle of the bands at the cook convention center in Memphis Tennessee. We covered last in line by Dio, living after midnight by Judas Priest, and paranoid by Black Sabbath. Was allot of fun, Most bands I was in did only originals. I’ve been making up tunes since I was very young, I wrote my first song from beginning to end when I was 15. I have written a couple of songs on the keyboard. I mostly write on a 12 string acoustic guitar. I played bass professionally for many years & wrote many a riffs & a couple songs on the bass. I still like to mess around on the drums and other instruments,
I remember a band I was in when I was 15. It was called “Silent Scream”. We had the look as well as the talent. We had the long crazy hair and wore spandex & chains and stuff lol. We looked like a young Motley Crue. It would’ve been nice if we would’ve stayed together all this time. We would’ve definitely been a force to reckon with. After the sink got broke where we rehearsed at the guitar players grandads jewelry store on state line & 51 & water went everywhere that was the end of us.
I remember the night the sink got broke we had just played a party in Southaven MS. The house was so full. People trying to get in looking through the windows from outside. Looked like a car lot in the street! When we got back to the practice room. One of the guitar players sat on the sink & broke it. Major water leak!

 

Right after Silent Scream & the sink broke. Lol. I got into an all original Christian rock band called Lambano in 1986, We were together one month and wrote 9 songs from scratch & opened up for Lucile Ball (from the show I love Lucy) son Desi Arnez jr’s band in front of over a thousand people, it was a big enough deal that a big music store in Memphis called Strings & Things shot a video of it! Got the DVD somewhere. There was a thousand chairs and it was standing room only! They had to turn people away at the door! David & the Giants, Desi Arnaz JR band was great but they should not of picked us to open for them. We were just full of high energy rock & Roll in your face. We had the crowd in an up roar & when Desi’s band came out to play, there music is just really laid back & we were just the wrong band to open for them! I heard later that they loved us & wanted us to come to their ranch & bring our friends, our girlfriends & our girlfriends friends and make an album in there studio on their ranch & ride horses. (Did I mention I love horse’s lol) Everything just kinda fell apart & no contact after that with anyone one from the band or other wize.
The video was VHS but I had it put on DVD. I have it somewhere! I know there is one song from the night we played on face book in my photo album under videos along with many other videos of bands I’ve been in. But for some reason even with today’s technology you have to be on a pc to view videos in some ones photo album on face book. Doesn’t make since why you can’t do it from a phone & yet you can still see a video on someone’s wall or page? Maybe someday the powers that be will figure this out! Lol

“Lambano” New Years Eve 1986

Rusty and I at Mckeller park
Mum bought me my first horse when I was 12. 1st there was Nicki. She was a registered pure bread American quarter horse. She was sweet & gentle. 2nd was Rusty he was half Arabian & half American quarter horse. He had a prance when he walked. He was a very well trained cow horse when I got him. He could turn completely around on a dime in 2sec flat! You had two hold the rains tight or he would take off & if you let them loose quick then you best hang on! He was a fun ride. I miss them both. I use to love to ride from the stables to Mckeller Park & on the way I would go for a swim in the lake! I would hold on to his tale and he would swim me around! He loved the water & it was very nice especially on hot days! One hot Saturday a few of my friends & I were swimming with our horses & the stable master creeped up & stole our clothes & we had to ride back to the barn full of people with a big horse show going on with just our underwear on! Lol
I use to just take off and go ride by myself when I had a lot on my mind! Wrote a song or two that way! Riding at midnight under the full moon light. Horses can be funny at night though! I mean just an old tire they see every day on the trail can become a spooky object at night. Or lord help you, if it’s a paper bag blowing in the wind! Lol. So you can imagine riding along without a care in the world playin my guitar on horseback at night & come up on that old tire! Yea it’s funny now but wasn’t real funny at the time! You can imagine all of a sudden he jumps 8 feet in one leap sideways!
I remember a couple times I rode to a girl friends house & on the way I would go through McDonald’s drive through. People just a gawking! I always said I would one day ride horses on the beach with that special someone but at this point I’d being doing good to make it to the beach myself. Lol. Really miss my horses. Maybe someday I will have some more! In Fort Lauderdale Florida you can watch the sun rise out of the middle of the ocean & then you can drive an hour across & watch the sun sink into the middle of the ocean on horseback. This is definitely on the bucket list!
All original band I was in “Rain” at Southaven spring fest 1993
I jammed with lots of people off & on but Im just naming a few bands I was in but I think all of us could’ve went somewhere. So after “Lambano” the Christian rock band. I got into an all original band called Rain, that’s the band I was in that I mentioned we recorded at my Dads studio. It was 1993, I was working in Spring field MO. I went to a go go dancer club & I thought to myself hey this could be kinda cool to have a girl dancing while my song is being played so the DJ made it happen & he liked the cd so much he played it all the time. But he played it for this guy who was in jail yet well connected with people high up in the music business & heard me playing bass on that cd & said that is the guy we want! He knew of this band (Hammer Head) that broke up. The original singer was left & of course he had the writes to the “Hammer Head” name! So I was asked to go & reform ‘Hammer Head” in Seattle Washington to play for top notch entertainment. There was 4 other guys from different states that went to reform “Hammer Head” in Seattle WA.

I loved my Ibanez Sabor bass

 

Me & my little red truck on the way to Seattle WA
I drove my little red truck on Halloween night at midnight 1995 I think it was. I left from Memphis Tennessee & started my trip to Seattle. First time I ever left the home. I remember there was tumble weeds tumbling across the road. I remember my eldest brother trying to talk me out of going! Those were some wild times! There was 4 other guys from other states that went to reform hammer head! Two guitar players & one drummer & a light show man/cook/ RV driver.
It really was a big deal to drive so far since I had never left the nest before. Lol. I had to pick up one of the guitar players in Springfield MO. We road in my truck together the rest of the way! That is a story by itself lol! Seems like it took 5 or 6 days to get there!
When we got there I had to learn 65 cover songs even though we only used about 47 of them. The big wheels backing us to reform “Hammer Head” wanted us to just do covers to see how we were goin to do! I remember being in an RV by myself learning these songs all week. While they were in the RV next door partying. This was not the fondest memory I have I tell ya! But I learned them all in one week & we played our first gig at Reno NV Delmar Station, The guys had no faith in me! But I came out & didn’t miss a note, jumped around & put on a show!
We toured through NV up to Squim WA where we got snowed in & we missed our big gig where these big producers were waiting on us! Needless to say it didn’t go over to well when this was the 2nd time we were a no show. Even though it was due to weather. It didn’t matter! I remember having to take the giant fairy just about in any direction you want to go in! One place sticks out above the rest on our tours. It was a pace called the Oasis in Winchester Bay Oregon. It was absolutely beautiful. They have an Elevator that goes down inside the cliff into a cave that opens up into the pacific ocean that if your there on the right day you can see a killer whale come right in the cave & grab a seal or so I was told! Definitely one of the places on my list to visit again one of these days!

 

Reformed hammer head! In the studio down town Seattle WA
My little red truck got totaled on Shasta Mountain. By one of the guitar players. When my truck was elected for him to go back to springfield MO. To pick up the sound man! So that left the singer, one guitar player, drummer and myself, we did good actually as a 4 piece. I remember it was after we got snowed in the first time about 20 min… from Cananda! I was devistated when I got the news about my truck & I had to fly home! That was the first time I ever flew! It was definitely different after taking 5 or 6 days to drive there & only 5 hours to get home! Flying not really a big deal! Its kinda like a really expensive yet very weak ride at a theme park & that’s only when landing & taking off!
I Remember always trying to call an Ex girlfriend SRP & winded up talking to her Mum every time! Her Mum was always very sweet. Never did get my ex on the phone. I called home allot as well! i remember birthday money being sent to me & I wanted this leather moter cycle jacket at this place that had them on sale in down town Seattle. Was having a hard time findinig the place & no one could tell us how to get there. Then a blind guy took us strait to the place! He says the streets all begin with a letter that spells Jesus Christ & makes a cross with the first letter of each word, & that’s how he got around. Thought that was kinda cool!
“ME” tryin to phone fome from WA

Hammer head outside the studio, downtown Seattle
So Hammer Head/balistic wood hippies tried to stay together. We played at some party in a bassment, I remember the my hair toched the ceiling, lol so for some reason the guys decieded to leave all the equipment set up. I took my stuff with me. Everything got stolen so naturaly since I took my stuff they thought I stole theres or had something to do with it. This was the beginning of the end of us.
I hung around for a month or so with the lead singer. We tried hard to get something eles going with the Music but just didn’t seem to work out! So I flew home. If those guys would of just came to memphis. My family had a construction company & could of put us all to work & Dad had a studeo we could of recorded in for free. They just wouldn’t listen. I guess some things are just not ment to be! I have allot of respect for bands that stay togethere because people don’t realize what it takes for a band to make it! Say 5 guys on an RV traveling across the country side for months on end & each has his or her on opinion & idea of how things should go! If a band just practices once a month but stays together in the end it pays off in the long run just to stay together but this proves to be very difficult for most.
Many stories I could tell from my experiences there. I could easily write a book! But never was I so happy to fly home! When Mum & Dad picked me up at the Memphis air port they didn’t recongize me with hair past my belt line, all one length with a go-T & my leather moter cycle jacket on! Seattle was difinitely an experience. Lots of friendly people there & everywhere you look its like a picture perfect post card! Made allot of friends there. I still talk to the lead singer of “Hammer head” from time to time! Ive even made friends with the original drummer and lead guitar player as well. I do have plans to visit there soon!

“The Big M” the Memphis Bridge. Never thought I would be so glad to see it flying home!

 

My Brother & I 2015 my brother Greg & I 2013
When I got home from Seattle I got in with a band called “Black List”. One of the heaviest bands I’ve ever been in. It was the drummer from the Christian rock band “Lambano” We practiced at my Dads studio. Had the place to ourselves at night. Wild times I tell ya!
I had a 7000 Hartke top of the line bass head. With one 4 ten cabinet. I brought back from Seattle WA. But I didn’t want to use it until I had all 4 cabinets. So I used my Peavey mark 8 head with two cabinets! One had an 18 inch speaker & 2 tens & the other had a two 15 inch speakers! It sounded like the bass was farting because the drummer beat his pearl drums so loud. You couldn’t hear the bass for the guitar players double marshal stack & the drummers pearl drums! But when I hooked up all 4 cabinets to the Hartke 7000 head, I was only on volume level three and they were telling me to turn down! Lol I really loved that bass rig.
“Black list”& I practiced in Dads studio for a year without a lead singer & after a while of getting tired of them not showing up. I decided to join in with my brother who had been playing the key boards for some time. He even wrote a song or two while I was in Seattle WA. We formed a band & called it ‘Old School” we were to name our first album “this side of the tracks” I got the guitar player & drummer from the original band I was in called “Rain”’ We played together so much back in the day that we were very tight & fit well together. So I then took unfinished bits & pieces of my brother’s songs & put them with bits & pieces of unfinished songs of mine with my brother’s help. They went together very well. We practiced at my brother’s house & we definitely had a unique original sound! It’s a shame we didn’t stay together. I always said if I had a jam room with all the instruments & no one had to bring anything but just show up & have at least 30 dollars for each one when they walked in the door. Then they would show up every time! It’s seems it always comes down to money & equipment.
My brother & I did have some real jam sessions at my Dads studio through the years before & I went to Seattle & when I got back! Those were some wild & fun times. When we played whatever & had a great time doing it

Picture taken 2015
These days my brother & I are still close & always have been! We still play music as well as write, sing & work together I mainly just play & write on my 12 string acoustic guitar. I really enjoy pickin & grinin, chillin & grillin with my friends. When I got back from Seattle I could of played bass for anyone. Before I left Alice & Chains was looking for a bass player & I wish I would’ve tried out. Allot of things I wisha, coulda, shoulda, done! I may not be here today or who I am today if I would’ve done this or that. & if I had it all to do over again? Who knows I probably would do the same thing?
I was recently recording with a friend & when we were almost done recording. His band showed up & his drummer didn’t make it so the bass player got on drums & let me get on the bass & yep I still got it! Could still play bass with anyone with just a little practice!
So most of my life I wrote music just to entertain myself for hours & several years ago I started singing/performing my songs for people. I think I was in West Virginia in 2009. I wanted to show my 12 string acoustic guitar to some friends from work. They were at a bar/grill that had a smoking patio out back. I pulled out my guitar & the next thing ya know I had a crowed gathering around. Been playing for folks ever since. Love to go & play places I’ve never seen or been before. Love me some open mic nights most of all! There is an open mic night in town (Memphis TN) at a place called “Stage stop” it’s been supporting local bands for as long as I can remember. Played there many times! They have open mic\ steak night on Tuesday nights. Love it there. Nothing but good times there always. There really should be an open mic night in every town, every night of the week!
In 2007 I got into a band with some friends I grew up with from the neighborhood called “Injector” It was really good stuff & it meant something to me because we all grew up together in Whitehaven the same neighborhood & were very close. Really put my heart & soul into that band. Sadly the drummer died before it got off the ground. I tried to find a drummer but it seemed like a loss cause.
So I have a total of 29 songs copy written today 5-16-17 & allot more I am working on. Although I write all kinds of music. My goal is to write a song the whole world likes!