Biography
Music Since the Age of 9
1964 - Like everyone else in 64, I became hooked on the Beatles, but it was the trumpet that formed my early roots as a musician. I was a huge fan of Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass. I loved to watch the TV specials whenever they came up. Midway through middle school, my cousin Carl lent me his Gibson guitar for a month to see if I could play a song on it. One month later I proved I could with a melody of "On Top Of Old Smoky" which I finger picked out for him. He was floored, so he took me to the nearest store to buy me a guitar. I believe it was a Korvetts store that had a few guitars on display, a green emerald sparkle guitar that had a million switches on it. Little did I know and I discovered later on that action was super high and most difficult to play, but I pressed on (bled on).
1971 - I was working as a dishwasher after school at my uncle's restaurant, the Tally Ho Inn in Lake Hiawatha, NJ. Two weeks before New Year's Eve, my uncle John gets into a fist fight with his keyboard player, he was also fired. This killed his accompaniment for his singing, no backup. My uncle angry and upset, comes into the kitchen while I’m working and asks if I could get my guitar and my friend Greg to back him up for New Year's Eve, I said sure (excited and scared). My mom even went and made us matching vest to wear for the gig. And so New Years came and we played a bunch of our tunes and did a few of my uncles stuff, all in all it was a good night for my first real gig, my uncle got a bit drunk as the evening went on. I believe Greg and I made $50 each for that night, not bad for my first show.
