Fireside Tales

I was born in February of 1952. My first memory of music was this old 78 rpm record that my parents had. On one side it had Gene Autry singing "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer". On the other side it had Guy Mitchell doing a song called "Singing The Blues", which was actually written by Hank Williams Sr. Oddly enough, I still sing BOTH songs today. I think of it as kind of paying homage to Gene and Guy for teaching me to sing. I was raised Catholic and went to a Catholic school for grades 1 through 8. This was back in the "old days" when you went to church EVERY SINGLE MORNING before school. Also, since back in the old days, Catholics went to church EVERY SINGLE SUNDAY. I guess you could say that I learned to sing because I sang EVERY SINGLE MORNING, except Saturday, from the time I was 6 years old on. In the church I went to, you were required to sing! If you didn't sing, you got your knuckles cracked with a ruler (Ouch!). Isn't it ironic how, sometimes, the thing you think you hate most in life eventually turns into the thing you love the most? When I was 6 years old, I absolutely hated having to stand up straight and tall and bellow out "Ave Maria" at the top of my lungs. Today, playing guitar or piano, and bellowing at the top of my lungs is what I absolutely live for! Strange. I guess the main other things I can tell you about myself are that I teach Classical Piano, Jazz/Blues Piano, and all styles of Guitar (Blues, Rock, Country, Folk, Finger Style, etc.). Besides playing SOLO, I also Piano with the SMALL CHANGE JAZZ DUET, and I play Piano and Guitar with THE JEDI BLUES BAND. I think that if we can turn off our televisions from time to time, get out of the house, see a LIVE performance of ANYTHING ANYWHERE, interact with each other, TALK to each other, and LISTEN to each other, then there might just be hope for us. The TRUTH is passed from person to person by people who care about one another. It doesn't come from a television network owned by a corporation that manufactures weapons. SO GO SEE SOME LIVE MUSIC!