Having brothers considerably older than him, Roger Henry became a big Beatles fan as a young boy.

“That’s how I got interested in music. They had all these LP’s and it’s really the first music I ever heard. I listened over and over again, on a 45, to The Day Tripper and We Can Work It Out.”

He began to take guitar lessons at fourteen and no one had to tell him to practice. He was eager to learn and would wake up ready to learn. It was never a chore, which today is how Roger approaches music to his students at the Sunset Academy of Music.

“My goal is that my students will have an appreciation and a love for music all of their life. I never want music to be a chore.”

In 2007, Roger and his wife wanted to leave their small town in Maryland and re-locate to San Francisco. He began sending resumes for teaching jobs.

“Anything to do with music.”

He wasn’t offered a position teaching music, but an offer to buy an existing music school. After eight months of negotiations, he felt that his path was certain and he bought Sunset Academy of Music. He essentially bought the name, and the student list. There were sixty seven students on the roster.

“It was scary, stepping in with another teachers students. It’s a little tricky. You’re dealing with students that have learned a different system or style of teaching, and there’s certain chemistry between a teacher and a student. Sometimes it has nothing to do with your ability, students sometimes are just accustomed to the teacher they started with.”

It was a concern for Roger that many of the sixty seven students would drop off after he acquired the Academy.

“It was the opposite. It picked up fairly quickly and has been consistent since the beginning.”

Roger can teach guitar, bass, flute, piano and drums. He concentrates primarily on guitar and bass and with eight instructors working for him, private lessons are offered in cello, saxophone, trumpet, banjo, trombone and Arabic tambourine.

His student base is an even mix of children, teenagers and adults.

“We teach five year olds and sixty year olds and even older.”

Joys of the business?

“Every day I wake up and think what song am I going to learn today and teach today? There’s always something to look forward to. It’s the best job on the planet. I wouldn’t want to do anything else. It’s a blast.”

Roger learned to read music and was classically trained at The North Carolina School For The Arts. After a few years he felt limited with the sole concentration on the classical side and Rock won out and he began to play in various Rock and Blues bands and in 1993 added teaching to his repertoire.

Recently Roger heard some live jazz at Café Bastille and ventured to the Fillmore to hear Chris Isaac and a musician he considers, “A great songwriter-Nick Lowe.”

It was just last year when my sister introduced me to Nick Lowe at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival and under shaded trees above the Rooster Stage in Golden Gate Park, Nick sang,

“You make me want to be a better man.”

Yes. Music can make you a better man or woman.

For the past fifteen years Roger has transcribed more than 4,000 songs by ear.

“I’ll listen to a song and write out the chord progression, certain melodic parts and the guitar segments.”

He keeps these musical transcriptions in notebooks.

“I’m on my 17^th notebook now. Writing out music. Writing out songs. Mostly Rock from the 1950’s to the present.”

I’m curious how Roger likes the neighborhood.

“The Sunset, I like it a lot. It has sort of a small town feel. The buildings are two and three stories, no high-rises. You see the same faces walking down the street and there are a lot of families.”

May we incorporate more music into all of our lives. As we end this year and prepare for the next, with a new administration, let me remember one of Roger’s earliest influences,

“Life is very short

And there’s no time

For fussing and fighting my friend…

We can work it out."

Happy New Year.

NEXT WEEK: LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO DAVE, OWNER, ONE SHOT TATTOO.