The Littlest Rock Star - Tallan Noble Latz

01/26/10 03:30, by , Categories: NAMM 2010, NAMM 2010 Music, BFMN Exclusive , Tags: 10-year-old, blues, dan grigor, guitar, guitarist, latz, littlekidsrock_org, littlest, namm, noble, rock, star, tallan, the t-man, ver2oso, youtube

by Dan Grigor

One of the coolest things that happened to me at NAMM 2010 was getting to know the little dynamo known as “The T-Man.” Tallan Noble Latz is a 10-year-old natural-born rock star. He plays the guitar with just the right combination of youthful exuburance and old-soul bluesman. Where he finds the emotion for his style, at that age, is beyond me. He plays like he’s been alive a long, long time. How do you get that bend unless some girl broke your heart? How do you find that run that goes right up a spine unless you have shared a great love? Perhaps he has a secret of expression we’re missing. I hate to say it, but someday soon… say 9th grade or so when his heart gets broken for the first time… I want to be there to hear that. You listen to him play and you forget he’s a kid.

Click through for a great video from the NAMM 2010 stage.

I caught up with him at NAMM while he was waiting to go on. He looked like any other little kid as I chased him around the lobby. Then you stop to think that, moments ago, he was supposed to be opening for Orianthi and now she was onstage, essentially opening for him. At that moment, he seemed not to have a care in the world. Not nervous, not thrown by the hectic and loud lobby stage, apparantly not at all bothered by the fact that he now has to follow Orianthi, arguably one of the best young guitar players ever. Aside from her huge contributions to Michael Jackson projects and the fact that she’s hot, she plays that thing with an energy that rattles my confidence a little. Yet here was T-Man, making faces at me and hanging around with his buddies, calm, cool, collected.

You saw it again onstage: the confidence, the self-awareness as they did a quick sound check and set up the stage. He was playing with kids from the LittleKidsRock program in LA and they rocked. Watching them play was such a treat. Watching Tallan work is a joy! So aware of everything: chords and lyrics, timing, directing the band, hitting the mark for two, count ‘em two, camera dudes who were not supposed to be that close, skipping over his cable like it was a jump rope and, in between all that, he played. He played like no one was lookin’ at all. An unabashed, raw good time as if he had the time of his life playing to this guitar-centric, star-packed and very adoring audience.

His show was a part of a program put on by littlekidsrock.org and featured several local kids and Anton Oparin, a very talented young Russian guitarist.

LittleKidsRock, sponsored by NAMM, Fender, The Dr. Phil Foundation and many others, provides students with free musical instruments and lessons that use popular music styles, making it easy to learn. Over 1,200 schools have already benefitted from this program and you can help them do more by getting involved where you live or sending them money.

We have createed a longer version of Tallan’s NAMM video that features the introduction by LittleKidsRock founder David Wish. You can see the passion with which he has devoted his life to bringing music to our children. He brought two local area teachers and several of their students to play with Tallan and Anton and they had the time of their lives. The teachers were so proud and the kids rocked like old pros. They deserves our support and BareFootMusicNews plans to stay involved. We will bring you their stories whenever we can.