ers - a band like Creedence or
the Beatles or the Stones - that
was our thing. We wrote our first
songs and made an album in
our family’s living room when we
were like 9 or 10 years old. That
was the dream and we did it. We
played local talent shows and
dances and stuff in Jersey. When
we got old enough we left home
and went to the city. Once we
got to New York it was like ‘Oh
shit, we’ve got to make a living!’
I could play guitar for other
people so I began putting my
name out there. I’d do ses-
sions and started going out - it
was way before cell phones or
beepers. I’d just go out with
my guitar, check my answering
machine with quarters at pay
phones all day to see if anyone
was calling for a session. And I’d
run from one session to another;
fifty bucks here, hundred bucks
there. I did that for a bunch of
years. My brother had joined a
NJ STAGE 2017 - Vol. 4 No. 5
new version of Blood, Sweat &
Tears in the 80s. It was all young
guys, fresh out of school. The
only original guy was the singer.
He pulled me into that. The gui-
tar player was sick one day and
John said, “Want to do a gig?”
He sent me a cassette tape and
some charts - no rehearsal. I
learned it on the plane on the
way down to Miami. That’s
when I realized I’m a pretty quick
study at learning other people’s
shit. After that I played with
Glen Burtnik, Jill Jones (singer
in Prince’s band The Revolution),
BushRock (a band with Delmar
Brown who played with Sting). It
was like a lot of stuff going on,
but not one big band to hand
my hat on so to speak.
We had this blues band called
The Hudson River Rats and we
would play every Wednesday
night in 1988 or so at the ACME
Bar & Grill in East Village. All
kinds of people came down
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