Cool thread. I too got started young, about 8 I think with accordian. My mother was a champion swing dancer in the 50's in LA and was even offered a contract at Warner Brothers but declined. Years later I asked why and she said she was pregnant with my sister and that was it. My step father was a big band singer so like most of you music was all over the house.

Everybody loved Lawrence Welk and I really liked Myron Floren so my grandmother started me with lessons. I was in a 36 piece accordian orchestra and we took first place at the Western States Accordian Festival in '57 and '58 playing Toccata and Fugue in Dm and Victory at Sea. I was 12 and 13 then. We had the original orchestra charts and had to transpose in our heads, I was 2nd Trombone, then first. When I started high school accordians were definitely not cool and I stopped playing until I joined the Air Force in '64.

Sitting in the Airmens club in Misawa Japan was a decent upright piano with a bunch of sheet music on it. One was Baby Elephant Walk and I had just seen the movie so I started noodling it off the music and figured it out so I switched to Pink Panther. A guy came up to me and asked if I wanted to play in a GI band on the base. That's where it really started. I picked up what has to be the first version of a Yamaha Electone organ. Now I play all keyboards but the B3 is still my main thing.

I could write a book but to jump forward I got out of the service and joined a Vegas show group in 69 and toured all over North America from Canada to Florida to Hawaii for 5 years and wound up in Richmond Virginia. The group had decided we had enough of the road, the bandleader was from there and we got a house gig at a place called the Black Cat. We did a lot of recording in a local studio.

Pat Benatar became our girl singer, before she made it of course. She was actually our third girl singer and the other two were just as good as she is. We did an album with her and two singles. We tried to be rock stars but it was close but no cigar. That band finally broke up and I moved to Calgary Alberta with my wife who was from there. I was a union booking agent there and was still gigging 6 nights a week for another 10 years. At one point I was in a pretty good country band which was a complete change for me and also a lot of fun. I was playing my B3 with a steel player. Sounded pretty good. Country stompers really like to party and they were good people too.

Another leap forward, I wound up back in LA about 25 years ago and my gigging went to being a weekend warrior. At age 72 I'm still doing it, I did three gigs on Catalina island over this past New Years, and I have a local bar gig booked April 27 and a few more gigs lined up later this year and I know I'll get a few more calls.

Music has been in my life all of my life and I'll never give it up. I'll gig until I can't do it anymore it's that simple.

I've analyzed myself and the results are quite plain. I'm a ham, always have been. When I heard the old joke "When I open the refrigerator door and the light comes on, I'll do 10 minutes in front of a dead chicken" I knew that was me. Deserved or not when people come up to me and say how much they enjoyed my playing, I love it. Give me more, more, MORE!

Bob

Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.