Chronicles
I played my first gig in Baltimore in 1957. A Teen Center of some sort...My friend Andy Savin called and said he was working with a new band and they needed a piano player. That was me.... 'The Saints' didn't last long, even though we had a lot of 'enthusiasm'. Next came 'The Tempests', an R&B group with a horn section. I played a Wurlizer Electric Piano....the kind Ray Charles used on 'What'd I Say'...Ray played better, btw. Although we had some success around Baltimore, it was not really what I was looking for. I'd gotten hooked on Jazz early in the 1950's and Rock & Roll was just too much bangin' and stompin' for me so I began to hang out in The Washington DC Jazz Clubs after my early stint with Rock & Roll.
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I'd begun this musical life in my sixth year by meeting every week with Professor Steven Kron, himself a wonderful schooled pianist who drove a Studebaker Golden Hawk. We're talkin' the Fifties here so he would have been considered somewhat cool, I suppose... His greatest challenge in life was me. For all the structure and discipline he taught me, I was born an 'ear' musician and really didn't care about reading Bach or performing Chopin Etudes at Recitals. But through those classical piano years I internalized the basics for what would become my musical toolbox. I am much more appreciative of his teachings than I was at the time so consider this an apology, Professor.
By 1961 the music scene was changing again and Folk Music appeared. It certainly wasn't new but The Traditional Folk Music and those who performed it had been the victims of The 'Red Scare' in the early Fifties and many had been run out of the music business. Think Pete Seeger, The Weavers, Josh White... That vacuum was filled with younger players and singers who brought The New Folk Music into clubs on the West Coast, and Coffee Houses in the Northeast and Midwest. More Showbiz and less Tradition. I added a guitar and banjo to my arsenal and slid right into this new scene.
In Baltimore there were places where a guy with a guitar and some understanding of music could fit right in, which I did, most notably at 'The Blue Dog Cellar'. Those were great times for a fledgling performer to learn the ropes and make some connections. My goal was to get out of Charm City and move to New York - The Big Time - which I did in 1965 with a great trio I'd helped to form - David, della Rosa & Brooks. We were mainly a concert act, did some clubs, and wore the wheels off of our Ford Station Wagon for 5 years traveling America and Canada. In New York we did record production, writing, arranging...musical direction....back up singing on records for other artists, and generally tried to keep food on the table.
Somewhere along the way I fell in love with The South and after the group broke up in 1969, and after a one year stint playing piano , writing charts, and fronting a band for Josh White, Jr., I headed South to settle in The Great Smoky Mountains where I kept riding the music train with 'The Town Criers' in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. In 1978 I moved to Mississippi, finished my degree at Ole Miss, and played keyboards with a marvelous Jazz Fusion Group - 'Groove Merchant'. I played my last gig on December 31st, 1979 at The Biscuit Company in Vicksburg. Then I went back to The Real World.
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For ten years I only played my guitar occasionally. Not a lot of time for someone to make music when there are kids to raise, mortgages to pay, yardwork to be done.... But in the early 90's my creative streak tugged at me again. This time I began to write. Stories. Lyrics. A novel. Fiction. About The Great Smoky Mountains. After the years pile up on you and the experiences get deeper, all the ideas you need are there for the taking. So I took a few and in 2002, 'Monteith's Mountains' was published. In hardcover, no less. A historical tale set in 1902. A story about a serial killer, the Sheriff who chases him, and the young protagonists whose lives weave through it all. I just finished A 'Prequel' to "Monteith's Mountains' and it's now finished - 'Hazel Creek - A Memoir'.....
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Sometime in 2006, my musician daughter - Taylor Brooks - dragged me kicking and screaming back into music production. What goes around....sometimes comes back and gives you a second chance. And so I write, rehearse, record all the instruments and voices, and then mix it all together. Then I do it again.... It's great therapy and it's basically the only thing in this world I really know well. And I've finally found The Band I always wanted to work with.
So now...sixty-two years after I played my first gig...I've come full circle. Hope you enjoy my music, my novels, and my work!
Tuscaloosa / 2019
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