What are your fondest music business memories?

Was just thinking of the last 55 plus years as a musician.

Lots of GREAT MEMORIES! What are some of yours?

I'll let you know what some of mine are later in the thread.


Who's first?


Russ (old softie) Lay

Where to start???
Singing with the HS Glee Club and playing an accordion solo at the annual concert in front of a couple of hundred people - my first such solo performance ...

Playing a concert of classical music in an accordion orchestra including a tympanist at Carnegie hall, NY ...

Playing in a band with the same great guys for 26 yrs ...

Playing a piano lounge gig while Jerry Vale was having dinner with his family ... he later stood by the piano holding his 3 yr old grandson and said "really nice job - thank you" when he left ...

The smiles on peoples faces when playing a senior/nursing home gig ...

... no doubt more to come ...

Doing a session at CBS London and Jimmy Page walking in to do the guitar parts.

My band playing a super swank private BBQ, complete with an ox roast and jousting event, before members of the royal family.

And like Tony Mads, the absolute privilege of playing with the same band members for 14 years. And again like Tony, the smiles on the faces of the folks in the seniors' homes we play nowadays.

One more ... same piano lounge ... young couple at dinner, the guy asks if I can play Unchained Melody ... I said sure, but he says wait until we come in the lounge for dessert and coffee ... they come in, I play/sing the song, he proposes to her ... she says yes ...

cool thread
In no particular order:
Playing with a traveling USO show as a teenager in and around New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Worked in a "Lull Band" at a hotel at the shore (Wildwood). It was short term because of "illicit" activities resulted in the hotel being shuttered by the law.
Played piano and drums in R'nR and country bands in W.Va in early 60's
Working several years as a pick-up drummer for 10-17 pc Big Bands in Florida
Meeting and working as a stage hand for several big names of y'or...my favorite being Victor Borge. (I stayed far away from his piano.)
Passing through several stages of my life as a keyboard player/entertainer in wedding bands, bar bands to performing at assisted living centers and NH's.
And....happy for each opportunity and person I have worked with and for.
Eddie

What's emerging is a snapshot of entire music careers, from start through today.


COOL!


Russ

I was born at a very early age, and found that when I cried for something, they gave it to me to shut me up. Still works some.
But I digress.
Best early memory was sitting beside my mother at the Hammond B3 at Church when she went to practice. She let me play on it and I was pretty much hooked. It became my job to hold the switch down while it warmed up.
DonM

Mason, if I weren't WAY YOUNGER than you, I'd have applied the SWITCH to your naked little A**!

(Actually, typical of Don. He had a fantastic couple of careers
outside the music business and is still one of the "hardest working" folks on the "zone").

Russ

My earliest memory was at age 5, when I sat down at an old upright piano my father brought home and plinked out a song I just heard on the radio, Tennessee Waltz. My fondest memory, however, was the first time I performed at an assisted living center nearly 15 years ago. I'll never forget the faces of those wonderful people sitting there in the audience, all of which have probably long since passed away. Today, at Pickersgill Retirement I performed for about 90 retirees, one of which is an old friend and fellow musician from many years ago. Jim has been living there for just over three years and was recently diagnosed with systemic neuropathy, an insidious disease for which there is no cure. He came up to me at the end of the performance and said "I'm so glad you are here. You make life a lot more bearable for those of us that don't have much to live for." There are a lot of Jim's out there, and I wish to thank all of them for making my musical career the most memorable part of my life.

Cheers,

Gary

Very memorable...

1. Playing my first song in front of anyone, anywhere, which was the First Baptist Church social, age 13... the song -- House Of The Rising Sun -- a song about a whorehouse. The Church Lady was not amused.

That's it, it went downhill ever since.

Getting thrown in at the deep end when I moved to NYC to do session work, turn up for piano parts on a french rock and roll vanity record (rich backers and limited talent artist!) and Steve Gadd, Eric Gale, Gordon Edwards and Richard Tee, in other words, most of Stuff were the rhythm section! That will tighten your sphincter!

When I was young buying a mouth organ (harmonica) and finding you need to suck and blow to get different notes and then throwing in the bin (trash can) hells why do I need to keep translating for you, why can't you guays speak proper English, like what we does...heeeeee haaaaaaaa


I could say building one off the first Wersi Helios in the UK, but thats another story that would make you all cry, makes the Audya look like TOYTOWN POST OFFICE

Tony, so glad to hear from you, you quirky old dude!

I actually posted a "anybody heard from Tony" a couple of weeks ago.

Hadn't had a laugh in a while.


R.

My first ever at a German catering hall; when we packed and ready to walk out the manager said, “We were the worst band he ever heard”. Ouch! Six years later we became the house band.

John C.

Tony, Tony glad you’re back it’s been so serious here since you left

It was the 70's. I was single. It involved me, two women and my van during break.

Mason, mine was similar....and BETTER! Think 5 women and a BUS!

SO THERE!

Bill the reference to Church Lady was priceless!

Seriously, I could go on and on about gigs, venues and the like, but the best part of my music career has been the PEOPLE.

Mentors....sharing the stage with everything from beginners to Grammy winners.

Learning from others. Sharing what little I know with newcomers.

In a way, the B.J. Thomases, Dick Dale's, John Entwistle's, Lou Rawls and Ella Fitzgerald's of the world share equal billing (at least to me) with the Rory's, Uncle Dave's, DIKI's Chas, Tony W, DNJ, Don Mason and lots of others here..

I've said it before....you folks are important to me!

Best personal regards,


Russ


Russ

Ah, yes, back in 1974, we were young bucks. Your ban broke down when the tire flew off the rim after a blowout. And those two Olympic weight lifters that were training in Belcher, LA lifted your car so we could change the tire. That was humiliating, for sure. Neither one of use would take them up, they offered it to us. We just couldn't go there. I'm a big guy, you're bigger, and neither one of us would take on them gals. I was skeered, for sure. Thanks for the memories.

That was a totally DIFFERENT night! I think one of those lady weight-lifters now has a reality show in South Louisiana. But everybody does.
DonM

It was long ago, maybe 92-93, i was still a kid, 16-17 years old.
I was playing a wedding, singing a Serbian song, my microphone fell
down in the middle of it somehow, in the middle of singing. I went
down to get it and all of a sudden someone started singing in Albanian
language the same song...he was translating on the fly but there was no
rhyme nor any logic to it...by the time i got up everybody was stopped
dancing and half of them on the floor laughing...it was my Bass Keyboardist
who came up with the idea.

Playing at a Gospel gathering when just about everyone in the audience, from youngest to oldest, broke out crying loudly. One woman ran up to the front, shook her head & shouted: "I'm sorry, I cannot stand any more..." and ran out the back door.

In a bar or hotel, this would be terrible, but during a service this is the Holy Spirit at work in others' hearts & oh, how I wish we could experience this on a daily basis!!!

At times I would cry myself whilst just jamming, and oh, how soft & tender I feel inside afterwards even for days to come! How I also wish I could have more of those!

Then, on a few occasions, people came together at a home. No one would say anything, but I'll play very softly on the guitar for an hour or so whilst they sit back, heads back & eyes closed. Then we all share our different experiences afterwards when all this is over and when all tell where they drifted off to during all of this. Moments like these are AWESOME & precious beyond description...

One day I just sat down, jamming softly at home. Without my knowing, a lady that came to visit my wife, just sat down in the room next door, crying. Afterwards she told of the things she let go of in her life without anyone saying as much as a word to her...

Then finally, at the end of just about every outreach when both of us are high for days on end, like someone on drugs. Some of the most wonderful experiences that can be had in this life!

And then me crying now, even as I type this, just thinking upon those things again... Oh, life can be AWESOME, wonderful & most fulfilling indeed!!!

Not easy to understand for most, but very,very special for us...

Henni