I’ve said it before: it all started when the opening chords of “I Want To Hold Your Hand” hit my eardrums in first grade. I asked my Mom to get me a guitar, and we went down to the music store in downtown Painesville, Ohio and rented a student-sized classical guitar. It didn’t sound at all like George Harrison’s Gretsch Country Gentleman, but I stuck with the lessons for a little bit, sort of like Huck Finn with his readin’ and cipherin’.
In high school, my first set of after-school guitar teachers were Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townsend, Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, Jimmy Page and Frank Zappa. More followed, of course, as I discovered more players and more styles. Electric guitar consumed me. I drew doodles of guitars and band logos in my notebooks at school. I bought the rock thing, hook, line and sinker.
Growing up in Cleveland in the sixties and seventies, I soon caught fire with all the funky jams that were filling the airwaves, and grooved to Sly Stone and James Brown and Stevie Wonder. In fact, I turned away from guitar and ended up becoming a funk keyboardist before deciding to relocate to Boston to attend “the Berklee School” (as FZ would call it).
Fast forward all these years – I did not end up with a paying job in the music industry. I work the nine-to-five gig like everyone else, and I am blessed with good employment. Funny thing is, I am finally at a place in my life where I have the opportunity be a composer and producer. I suppose I could have been all along, but Johnny has pushed me and put the mission squarely front of me, and I accept it whole-heartedly. Now’s the time.
I really want to make this record – and I use the slang “record” in the sense of historical document; we’re not planning on publishing vinyl. It’s the snapshot of us, here and now, for ever.
I am so very grateful to everyone who has pledged money to us so far. Please help us with one more push – turn a friend on to us, forward this message, pledge another five bucks. Please.
And thank you, thank you so very much. I’m so grateful to have you all as friends.