An emotional herbalist in search of long-sought musical fruition...

Originally from Reading, PA USA. My mother played accordion and organ in clubs, bars and restaurants for years around town, taught for the two largest music stores, Zeswitz and Chiarelli's, and taught at home on her Hammond X-77 in our living room. At 7 years of age, after she had gotten up from playing Jack Chiarelli's modest hit, "In The Mission Of St. Augustine" to answer the phone, i went up on the seat and just started playing the song, and i'll never forget her saying, "You won't believe what this kid is doing!". Natural ear here, and yet despite my mother teaching music, i never fully learned to read. 

A year after my mother had died in 1978, i began playing piano professionally around Reading. My first regular gig was at The Reading Motor Inn (The Inn At Reading), and my second gig was playing Valentine's Day at a famous Reading landmark, The Crystal Restaurant, which had sadly burnt to the ground 12 days after my performance, on February 26th, 1980. Incidentally, 12 years later, i took part in a multi-cultural mural project for Mission SUCCESS, painting one of the boards that protected the ruins at the site where The Crystal had existed for decades. 

Also, just days after our mural presentation with the mayor and many representatives from the different cultures that existed in town, i was attacked 5 days after the Rodney King riots on the very block i both lived and worked on, being i was house pianist at what was once The 124 Club/MaryLou's Risorante, on North 4th Street, a block from the Penn Square where the murals were painted. i was in the paper 3 Sundays in-a-row, with the second time being an interview with Bill Bradley, and the second time having a photo shoot at the spot of the attack due to being involved with the 4th Street Consortium's beautification efforts and planting flowers at the spot where it happened. These 4 men were black, targeted me as getting revenge for Rodney King never knowing that my best childhood friend was not only black, but was also named Rodney! Rodney Carter has been missing from my life since 11/11/88, and all i have to say is that real love, real friendship, has no colour! The rest of the world needs to figure this out! Apparently, neither does hate.

Moving along, at my 4th regular gig, at the infamous, "Glass Door", i was playing there on Fridays, and i met my future "Pop" who also was playing there Saturdays. Sheer genius! I'd never heard a horrid piano ever sound as good as that. On my 21st birthday,  i got to see even more of that genius on the pool table and on cocktail napkins at a club we never expected  to be playing at for 3 years. Tommy Fessler took me under his wing and became the father i'd never had, in action, word and deed. We played nearly every place in and around Reading that had a piano. Sometimes my Pop played while i sang, or we took turns playing. Tommy's piano studio was at a major intersection on Penn Avenue, in Wyomissing. (Close to where Taylor Swift grew up, btw)

My Pop showed me his scrapbook once. It was filled with entertainment notices in Cape May, NJ. One large page showed his name in a large star in the top right, and all the way at the bottom in tiny letters was "Liberace" I was stunned! Seriously, my Pop also had a visitation by an unconventionally pretty woman and her friend one night while regularly playing a place there in Cape May called, The Pirates Cove. She went up to him with sheet music, and she sang a few songs there at the mic in 1961. Barbra Streisand! If you knew how amazingly talented Tommy Fessler was, you'd have no doubt of his story regarding this. Sadly, i lost my Pop just a year before my playing at MaryLou's, the mural project and the attack. But i sure wrote some good songs that year on the piano he got me! Miss him every day...

More to bio forthcoming...

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