I have got blisters on my fingers...

 I was approaching middle age when I started to learn the guitar.

Foolish boy.

I thought I could do it from a book! the one above. The Blues Bag by Happy Traum which btw is still available with the tyext in German but the music and lyrics in English. Relatively cheap too.

I never really got it as I tried the hardest songs first (!) and when one didn't work I tried committing another one to memory.  derrrrr. a whole lot of notes looking for a tune.

After a while I found  could learn the songs I like by ear and/or getting the chords off the net without having to learn complex fingerpicking and then memorising it.

Now I find that 30 years later those songs are  imprinted  in my brain and I have the skill to get them down which I do every now and then but my fingers on the right hand are soft as I usually pick with a plectrum.  this morning after a nifty little workout on "SEE SEE RIDER" I have a big blister on the right hand middle finger. yodellay eee o dee o layee o dee o layee. hehehehehehe.

this white boy has the john lennon sore finger blues.