Lexington musician still feels the music – without any fingers

Musician Joe Bates stands out on stage for his unusual instrument setup.

He plays with his guitar flat on a stand rather than holding it, and he stoops over it like a keyboard.

The strap isn't around his neck; it's around his waist.

A closer look reveals why: Bates has no fingers.

Bates plays rhythm guitar with Bombshell, which calls The Social Grill in Columbia home. The band regularly takes over the back patio and gets folks dancing to ’80s covers and crowd-pleasers like “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns ‘N Roses, with Bates wiggling everything – but fingers – as he jams to the music.

The 49-year-old Lexington resident with a solid singing voice and shaggy blonde hair is an inspiration to many, touting a glass-half-full attitude despite a litany of hardships in life.

For years he has used his passion for music – and determination to play it – to overcome physical obstacles. Bombshell bassist and Bates’ longtime friend Todd McGowan remembers the first time he saw Bates play guitar like it was yesterday. He was mesmerized, he said. “I kept trying to figure out how he was doing it.”

As a boy, Bates loved going to the public pool in his hometown of Union to listen to the jukebox blast Kansas, ZZ Top and The Eagles. His first guitar was red with a swath of white spirals.

“I was so proud of that guitar,” Bates said. “I didn’t know a single chord, but I would jump up and down in front of the mirror like I was KISS.”

His first time playing for a captive audience was at an eighth grade talent show. He was nervous, but once he started playing, he was hooked on performing.

That is, until a horrible accident almost ended it all.

‘Like a bomb exploding’

On Oct. 25, 1980, a 13-year-old Bates was at his friend Kevin Silvers’ house in Union helping with chores. He went to the utility room carrying a gas can for the lawn mower while searching for trash bags. When the hot water heater in the room turned on, the pilot light ignited the fumes from the gas can and caused an enormous blowup.

“It was like a bomb exploding,” Bates said.

Flames quickly engulfed him and the room.

Silvers pulled a screaming Bates out of the house and sprayed him with a fire extinguisher, but he suffered burns on over 90 percent of his body.

He was rushed to the hospital, where doctors told his parents he likely would not survive the night.

He did, and was taken to Shriner’s Burn Hospital in Cincinnati for a better chance at recovery.

It was a long, grueling recovery.

An infection developed in his fingers on both hands and in his right leg below the knee. Doctors had to amputate them.

For a boy who dreamed of becoming a rock star, the loss of his fingers was devastating.

“I knew at that point that I couldn’t play guitar,” he said. “How can you play guitar with no fingers?”

The amputations were followed by twice-weekly surgeries. For a while he couldn’t even sit up, the burned skin on his back too taut to allow him to bend forward. Once he could, he set about relearning to walk.

The reconstructive surgeries continued for 10 years.

“I stopped counting after 100,” he said.

To this day scars crisscross his arms and lick up his neck from under his T-shirts – daily reminders of how close he came to death.

Returning to the music

About two years after the accident, Bates’ younger brother, Jeff, helped him pick up a guitar again. He would pull Bates’ red guitar out of the closet and ask how to make a C chord.

“I’d try to tell him and point to the strings,” Bates said. “Before I knew it, I had the guitar in my lap.

“At some point, my brother said, ‘You’re playing the guitar.’ And I’ve been playing it – again – ever since.”

At first, it didn’t sound too good. And it didn’t feel too good. After Bates played again that first time, his hands were raw and the neck of the guitar was bloody.

But inside, he felt better.

As he got back to playing, a local guitar instructor named Robert Arthur reached out to him. Arthur taught Bates alternate tunings and chord progressions. He showed him how to tune his guitar in an open E, similar to that of a pedal steel player, and use the flat part of his left hand to press down on the guitar’s neck, like putting a closed fist all the way across the strings. With Bates’ left hand, which still has some mass below the knuckles (and enough dexterity to hold a pick), he could strike a chord.

“It opened up a new way to play and a whole new world of music,” Bates said.

Arthur, today a musician living in Nashville, said Bates is the most gifted player he’s ever taught – disability or no disability.

“God sprinkled some different dust on him,” Arthur said. “I have to wonder how great he would have been had he not gone through that tragedy.”

Different dreams

Bates doesn’t wonder about that anymore.

Now some of the best times he has are playing music with his kids Luke, 14, and Josie, 12, and his wife, Erin, who is also a musician.

He and Erin met when they both worked for Musician’s Supply in Lexington. The first time they hung out, they played music together.

“When he told me he could play guitar, I said, ‘Let me see!’” Erin said. “I remember being so inspired. I’m still inspired.”

She started going to see his shows and “had those falling in love feelings,” she said, “but I also had all this respect for him as a fellow musician.”

Over 15 years of marriage, Erin watched Bates learn how to change diapers and hold squirming babies.

“I don’t think there’s anything he can’t do,” she said.

Of course, there are still challenges.

Some days, not being able to do something as simple as picking up a paper clip off the floor can send Bates into a fit of frustration.

“A normal person could just bend down and pick it up,” Bates said. “For me it’s tricky. I have to try to think of a different way to get at it.”

There also are the things that have just become part of the day to day – looks and, occasionally, a question. Like the time he was speaking at an elementary school and a child asked him, “How do you pick your nose?”

He usually tries to laugh it off.

Those who know Bates describe him as relentlessly upbeat.

Even a bout with colon cancer a few years ago that required six months of chemotherapy couldn’t bring him down for too long. He chooses to dwell on happier things.

Like the first time Luke and Josie showed an interest in music. He’ll talk about his noisy house – everyone playing a different instrument in a different room – with a note of pride in his voice.

“Music is my sanctuary. I’m glad I’m able to do it,” he said. “I feel I’m celebrating life.”

This story was originally published November 6, 2015 at 12:01 PM with the headline "Lexington musician still feels the music – without any fingers."