Key West has a way of making the extraordinary feel completely normal.

You're at the grocery store and there's a world-famous author in line behind you. You're playing a gig at a bar and a Grammy winner is sitting at the table in the corner nursing a beer. Nobody makes a big deal out of it. That's just Key West.

So when a very famous face started coming into my music store to get his banjo restrung, it fit right in.

The Banjo Guy

Billy Connolly. Actor, musician, comedian — one of the most beloved entertainers in the world. If you've seen Fight Club, Mrs. Brown, The Last Samurai, or about a hundred other films, you know the face. If you've ever seen his stand-up, you know the man.

Billy lives near me in Key West. And for a while, he was a regular at my store.

He'd come in with his banjo — not as a celebrity, just as a guy who plays banjo and needs it looked after. We'd talk music. He loves it genuinely, the way musicians do, not the way famous people sometimes pretend to. The banjo wasn't a prop. It was his instrument. He cared about how it felt and how it sounded.

That's the kind of customer you remember.

The Question That Started It

One day he came in for a restring and, somewhere in the conversation, he asked about harmonica lessons.

Now, I play guitar. I'm not a harmonica teacher. But my friend Zack Jones is — and Zack happens to live nearby too. Zack is a serious harmonica player, the real deal, and one of those guys who can teach anybody anything if they're willing to sit down and listen.

I made the connection. We set something up.

Under the Gazebo

We met at my house. Out back, under the gazebo, in my banana garden.

If you've never sat in a banana garden in Key West on a warm afternoon with a couple of musicians and nowhere to be — I recommend it. The light comes through the leaves a certain way. The whole world slows down.

Zack sat with Billy and walked him through some harmonica riffs and techniques — the fundamentals, the feel, how to make the thing actually sing instead of just wheeze. Billy was engaged, curious, the way good students always are. He wasn't going through the motions. He wanted to actually learn it.

And I played guitar alongside them. Not teaching — just playing. Filling in the space, following where the music went, keeping the groove underneath whatever Zack and Billy were working on.

It was a cool jam. A genuinely cool jam.

What Sticks With You

Billy Connolly is a very nice fella. That's the simplest way to say it and also the most accurate. No pretense, no performance, just a guy who loves music and wanted to learn something new.

That's what Key West does to people — or maybe it just attracts people who were already like that. The island has a way of stripping away the stuff that doesn't matter and leaving you with the thing that does.

Music. A backyard. Good company. A banana garden.

That's the whole story. And it's enough.

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Wayne Sorbelli teaches guitar in Venice Beach, FL and performs throughout Southwest Florida. If you want to be part of the mission — pick up a guitar.