Donny, both you and I have always prided ourselves in our on stage, and offstage appearance. And, our audiences noticed how well we dressed for the occasion, and I frequently had lots of nice comments from audience members as to my attire. UD once said, "We should always dress better than our audiences" or something along those lines. I think he was right.

Today's younger entertainers, obviously, go for the "Look at me!" attire. Kinda like the folks that dye their hair with crazy colors, have hundreds of tattoos all over their body and multiple body piercings.

Though some are excellent musicians, the vast majority, IMO, are not excellent entertainers. I believe they depend on the shock value of their attire to carry them through the night, same as those who cannot read an audience and crank up the volume to ear bleed levels hoping this will fill an empty dance floor.

As for wearing shorts, which I rarely did, they were always clean, pressed, and mostly covered with my guayabera shirt, which was always clean and pressed with sharp pleats. These jobs were usually Tiki Bars in the Florida Keys. At the pool parties I did here, I still wore black slacks and a guayabera shirt.

When I was a kid, my dad always told me "You only have one chance of making a good impression - don't blow it!" He told me this for the first time when I was 11 years old and trying to get a job at the corner grocery store as a stock boy.

Gary