I would like to play a song with him – he could also
every 45 (rpm) that got replaced. It was a gold mine
play marimba. That proved to be a life saver, and
for a white kid from the suburbs of Cleveland, and
taught me to become a tuneaholic. I loved to
represented everything we had grown to love
accompany from the earliest of ages, I was five then.
musically. As kids, my sisters Gayle, Ginger and I
My musical progression was always being spiced
danced so much in front of the mirror in the living
up. When I was around age six my dad went to
room to that music that we wore out the carpet, and
Jamaica for an extended period. He returned with
my mother swore she would not replace it until we
many instruments and tons of calypso recordings.
were over posing, period!
Some years later, he and my mother went to Brazil
I started playing in bands when I was 12 years
and did the same thing for me. A bit later in the
old, when a teenager around 15 years old named
1960’s my family owned a bar/restaurant in the inner
Rich Pfhall would pass by my home as he walked
city of Cleveland, where the clientele was primarily
to his place. One day he came to the door, found me
black. The juke box had Miles Davis, Nancy Wilson,
and said he was putting a band together, and he
Nat King Cole, James Brown, and at least half of the
wanted me to play drums. We had a group, and with
tunes were by Ray Charles. My dad brought home
the help of our parents we rented out the