Not to dismiss the folk movement… 

My father had an old bass fiddle in our living room and I started playing that too. Soon I fell in with a small folk trio and did a few gigs at church socials. We were doing the classics like “Ride up” and “If I had a hammer”, stuff like that. I enjoyed it but, for me it didn’t last.

The next music experience for me would have been Kenny’s our local music store. 

The rhythm guitarist from our band D.O. and the Delinquents was a great friend of mine and loved hanging out. One of our favorite places was Kenny’s. We would start there always by going to the record department. They had these little sound proof booths where you could listen to new LP’s on a victrola before you decided to purchase. We would always search out the latest stuff we liked, usually “The Ventures”. When we dropped the needle, we would pull out our guitar picks and start strumming along on our air guitars to the new grooves. After we had our fill of that, we would beg the salesman there to please retrieve some type of new electric guitar or bass model, we could hardly afford, to look at. He was a great guy, and would always pull out something. For instance he would pull down a new case, pop open the latches, flip in around on the counter in front of us. Then, as he slowly pulled back the lid and we moved closer, there, nestled and surrounded by golden fur would be a shinny brand new Gibson Thunderbird bass in natural finish that was just flipping awesome. So we would oogle over that for fifteen minutes. Wonderful memories of the late sixtys, so fun and innocent.

Saturday, when we would return home from Kennys, we would watch Hullabaloo or Dave Clark. Hullabaloo had their house band the “Shindogs” while Dave Clark would feature a new hit band like “Paul Revere and the Raiders”. Watching, I started getting interested in playing the organ. It just seemed like the next step for me. 

One day when I was at Kenny’s, I wandered up the rear stairs. To my delight, I found a huge showroom filled with big new Hammond organs. No one was ever up there to speak of, so they would let me play them to my hearts content. I loved all the buttons, lights and sounds so as soon as Christmas rolled around I asked my folks if they would get one and traded in my bass for a new grey Farfisa mini compact organ. 

At that point I felt I was good on bass, ok with guitar, but now, I had to start all over again with keys. Alas, music lessons never ever came onto my radar screen…. Too danged stubborn!

Today's Reality Note: D.O. of the Delinquent's died and the other guitarist, who has always been a wonderful lifelong friend is today fighting for his life in a battle with cancer. Please pray for him.