‘m an African American. By that I mean I was born in South Africa and, after a few travels, ended up in America and became a naturalized citizen.
IMy musical journey began at school when, at the age of 7 or 8, I had a wonderful lady piano teacher for about 4 months, I guess through the school semester / term (which is what we called in it in South Africa). I recall practicing a grade 1, 2 page, version of the William Tell overture on an old Walnut piano my parents owned.
My mother played the piano, although not frequently, and I recall her playing tunes like Somewhere Over The Rainbow and various other tunes from musicals. My father played the clarinet and had actually cut a jazzy 78 with some friends of his. He was a big Benny Goodman fan back then although later in life he migrated to The Carpenters and Johnny Mathis.
Upon returning to school the following term, still seven or, at best 8, I discovered to my chagrin that my wonderful piano teacher had been replaced by a guy. Well, I did not like that at all so I quit. Boy do I ever regret that !
Around the age of 15 I got my first acoustic guitar and, about a year later, an Aria electric guitar. At the age of 18 I bought my first bass guitar, a Yamaha “violin” style bass and my parents bought me a Hofner 12 string electro-acoustic. Both of those guitars hand on my wall still today.
Well, my musical journey continued over the following years…decades…and I will leave you to read more on my bio page as I create it. Suffice for now to add that my sister excelled at classical piano, my brother Gary took up the guitar at 14 and my other brother started playing drums around 14 or 15. I guess you could say we were a musical family although we never actually played together as a family except for a brief stint in England when Gary and I created a duo and played Christmas and New Years Eve gigs sometime around 1983.
Feel free to look around, listen to some of the music and enjoy the photos. Please note that my music is copyright so if you want to use it, please ask, and please do not post it on YouTube, Facebook or any other of the social media sites who automatically acquire royalty free right to use in perpetuity when you do that.
God bless.
Robert