Andrew Mercure, 6, sits on a stool, tuning his kid-size Fender acoustic guitar. He watches, rapt, as his teacher Jerry Thibault tunes his own.

“Ready to rock?” asks the longtime musician, dressed in jeans, a black muscle shirt and cowboy boots.

Andrew nods.

“Did you practice?” Thibault asks, and Andrew nods again. “Wanna do the E chord?”

Andrew strums, tapping his high-top-clad foot while his dad, James, looks on and smiles.

Though James, a postman, admits he wouldn’t mind a little rock star in the family, it was Andrew’s idea to enroll at Jerry T’s School of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Madawaska. In a one-room storefront on Main Street, Thibault teaches students as young as 6 and as old as 73 the basics of music. And if the red guitar over the door doesn’t give its location away, the blues pouring out the door and down the street will.

Andrew isn’t quite B.B. King yet, but he doesn’t really want to be. Linkin Park is more his speed. Last fall, he watched a DVD of the band’s live concerts and was so inspired that he started playing along with his older sister’s toy guitar.

“We noticed he had the rhythm,” James said. “So his Christmas gift was a Fender guitar.”

Which, as Jerry T would agree, was a very nice gift. But Andrew can barely reach his arms around the body of the kid-size instrument.

“I’m getting a little electric guitar,” Andrew explained, taking a break from strumming. “This one’s too wide.”

Still, he doesn’t let that stop him.

On the music stand in front of him sit Andrew’s notes from last week:

JAM all chords that you know.

Don’t count for now.

Chords: EADG *Don’t have to play in order.

DON’T stop right hand playing.

Andrew has the jam thing down. He stares intently at his left hand, his small fingers wrapped tightly around the fret as his right hand keeps a rock ‘n’ roll rhythm. But he stops strumming to change chords.

“Don’t stop your right hand,” Thibault gently reminds him. “Keep the groove going.”

Thibault, 59, has kept the groove going for the last 44 years – the Madawaska native likes to joke that he played his first gig on Noah’s Ark. He started playing professionally as a teenager in the ’60s, back when Madawaska had 27 bars. At the time, there were 15 bands playing regularly on the weekends and six that played six nights a week.

“If you knew how to play back then, they’d come and get you right at the house,” Thibault said. “That’s what happened to me at 15. I was a junior in high school and my mom wasn’t happy about me coming in at 2 a.m. six nights a week.

“All junior and senior years I was going to bed at 2 a.m. I still need sleep,” he said, a wide grin spreading across his face.

Music is still his business, and business is good. He has traveled extensively through the United States and Canada with various incarnations of his band, and he has opened for Chubby Checker and Lee Greenwood. In the St. John Valley, the Jerry T Band is legendary.

“We’ve done all kind of music, from AC/DC to Johnny Cash,” Thibault said – not to mention the dozens of original songs he’s written.

The school of rock ‘n’ roll, however, is a labor of love. About two years ago, Thibault’s childhood friend Joe LaChance asked if he’d consider teaching him the blues.

“We were friends way back,” LaChance said. “He was our idol. We used to hang around clubs and stand outside listening to Jerry. We were too young to get in, but he wasn’t.”

For years, LaChance, 60, dreamed of learning how to play the guitar, and when he retired three years ago, he had the time. He just needed a teacher.

Jerry T was the man.

“This is as much a hobby for me as a business,” Thibault said. “I don’t have to do it, but I like to see people learn.”

And regardless of whether they want to learn piano or guitar, metal or country, Thibault starts out the same way with all of his students.

“I teach them to be a musician – not just play an instrument – the chords, the timing,” he said. “Once you learn the basics you can play everything from gospel to blues.”

And the budding musicians like to learn. Take LaChance, for example. He played his guitar for 16 hours straight practicing one of the riffs Jerry taught him.

“I got tennis elbow,” he said, laughing. “Now I have a cellar that’s full of instruments. My wife says if I bring another one home she’ll have to take out the couch.”

In Jerry T’s experience, parents seem to be a little more understanding. James Mercure has a secret hope that Andrew and his 11-year-old sister, who plays the piano, will put together a band. All they need is a singer, he says.

“I think all parents want their kids to rock,” Thibault said. “I think that’s the reason why they bring them here.”

As Andrew’s half-hour lesson drew to a close, he set up his fingers and hoisted his guitar so it balanced in his lap. Then he turned to his dad and smiled.

Jerry started strumming, switching from a country rhythm to a blues sound in the same chord. He turned to Andrew and explained the difference.

“You see guys who have made the biggest hits in the world with two or three chords in them,” he said. “They had the groove in them.”

And after a few sessions with Jerry T, Andrew does, too.

Kristen Andresen can be reached at 990-8287 and kandresen@bangordailynews.net.