Many of you know John Kelley from High School, and for those of you less fortunate, a little history. I first knew of John at Lincoln Jr High – he was very popular (Elvis) – but we didn’t actually meet until high school playing together in “LionHead Mountain” (Greg Astle on drums).

Shortly after high school, John moved to Laguna Canyon and when Will Brady started working with Honk Tom Newbell had “Neighbor John” work with him in “Smiley Cayucos”. John and I didn’t play together again until our 5 year high school reunion.

John left for Idaho not long after that and had put together “The Atomic Blues Band” and also did solo work. In 2020 he told me he was coming here for our 50 year reunion and had some tunes he wanted me to hear. I called Kerry Chester and booked time with him at “White Sands Studio”. We recorded three tunes (all good) but decided on “Teardrops” to focus on and complete as my first music video project.

I talked Matt Magiera (who worked on one of the other tunes) into working on a video idea for the tune while Kerry and I worked on finishing the audio and when John came to town for our 55 year reunion Matt shot John performing the tune (once again at “White Sands”).

We had help from K.k. Martin on slide guitar, Rich Bohn and James Zeiger on flute. Please take 3:39 and enjoy. I hope you can view this in full screen with some comfortable headphones on.

Greg taught himself to play guitar listening to Duane Eddie, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix (I ruined a lot of LP’s lifting and reseting the phonograph needle to replay the guitar parts). “My first gig playing guitar was with my brother, Ripper’s blues band, at Hungry Joe’s in Huntington Beach when I was 17 years old”.

Greg has since worked with many musicians including Bobby Caldwell, former members of the Righteous Brothers Band, and local surf legend Bob Spickard. He has been playing and singing at the restaurants and clubs in Orange County since the early 80’s.

He is currently appearing at these local music venues, The Fling, Tartan Room, Newport Beach Yacht Club, Black Marlin and Bistango, playing a mix of Classic Rock, Blues and requests.

Greg works with his own band, either as a trio or in large or small combos and is happy to consider work from anyone who enjoys guitar music.