My story is a lot different from these, and not nearly as interesting.
I started playing trumpet in Junior High School (remember that?) because my cousin played trumpet. By my sophomore year I was first chair in the Oklahoma all-state concert band.
My mother always played piano and organ so I fooled around with those instruments growing up also.
When I got to college, I played trumpet in the ROTC band for the first two years. Since I was a basketball player I couldn't play in the University band because of time restraints. College basketball is pretty rough and I lost my front teeth. The trumpet was never the same after that.
My sophomore year, my roommate, who played guitar and sang, asked if I knew a bass guitar player. He had a dance to play for in two weeks and it paid $50. apiece.
I told him sure I could play bass. I called mom and she sent me $50. I went to the pawn shop and bought a used Silvertone bass and amp for $45. Since I knew music theory, all I had to do was figure out which strings and frets went with which notes.
To shorten things a bit, I learned enough to do the dance, paid mom back, and I was hooked forever. I played bass and a little drums with that same group for the rest of my college days. We traveled all over the state playing proms and dances.
Right before graduation, a band back home was going really well and they offered me a job, but it was to play organ. Called mom again and I went to the music store and bought a Lowrey on credit. I knew only enough to get started but picked it up pretty quickly, song by song. I could play in the keys of C, F and G. If they called a long in E, I pressed the foot level that ben the note a half step and played in F. (Primitive transposer). I also did some songs on trumpet when needed (I Feel Good, Papa Has a Brand New Bag, etc.)
For Russ, at this time, I had yet to play or really listen much, to a country song. I could read anything written for right hand because of the trumpet history and I knew how to make chords with the left. I made myself learn to play in the other keys asap.
I was making about $40. a week at the Oil and Gas Journal as a writer, and about $75 on Friday and Saturday night. However my wife at the time "made" me turn down an offer to play with Freddy Cannon.
I soon dumped the Lowrey for a B3 and leslie.
My daytime career started doing better and I soon moved to Arkansas as Advertising Manager for Murphy Oil Corp.
In my spare time I played organ for parties and dances and soon had most of the the prime society jobs in a semi-small town.
After five years there, I quit and purchased a small newspaper and later an advertising agency.
In the late seventies I sold out and decided to become a musician full-time, at least until the money ran out. By then I was working two music jobs, one solo and one with a band. We backed up just about all the name artists that came through town. It was good experience. I had a few offers to join some of them, but none of them paid what I was already making!
An agent I ran into got me a job with a year's contract in Bossier City, LA. I packed up and moved and have been here ever since.
I did own my own nightclub for about 10 years, but for the past 15 have made a fair living "just playing".
I told you it was boring.
DonM