Chapter 1: 1956 to 1963

(Elvis - Guitar Lessons - Talent Contest - “Gaytones”)

 

Although I really don’t remember, I am quite sure that God entered my life when I was born to my loving parents, Gloria and Julie, in the Bronx, NY, 1947. After God, the loves of my life are: family, baseball, and music. Thank you God!

More specifically regarding baseball first, it is: New York Yankees baseball! After all being born in the Bronx, and having lived there until I moved to Long Island when I was 8 years old, who do you think I would grow up rooting for? Actually my mom, being from Brooklyn, was a Brooklyn Dodger fan at the time, but my Dad in this instance won out over my mom, in influencing me to become a lifelong Yankees fan. I could still hear him arguing with neighbors, and maybe also my mom at times, about who was the better centerfielder, Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees, Willie Mays of the New York Giants, or Duke Snider of the Brooklyn Dodgers?

I guess he argued better, but for me it was easy to pick Mickey Mantle, of the New York Yankees. So a Yankees fan it was and as I mentioned it is lifelong until I die. I watch every single game I can and I thank God and dad, for making me a Yankees fan.

To this day whenever I have plans to make, I check the Yankee schedule first. If I can do both, why not, right?

Mom and dad got divorced when I was 10 years old, but they both got married again to Yankees fans. Dad is now gone, having passed away on his 86th birthday, and wouldn’t you know, I actually talked baseball with him on that day, hours before he left to go to Yankee heaven. As I said before: lifelong until I die. And mom is now a Yankees fan for many years and still going strong at age 86. Thank you God!

So here it is 1956, the year Mickey Mantle won the coveted “Triple Crown” of baseball for: the highest batting average of .353, the most homers with 52, and the most RBIs with 130, plus it was the same year of the only “perfect game” in World Series history, by the Yankees Don Larsen, when one day out of the blue I hear on the radio the song that rocked my world, “Heartbreak Hotel”, by Elvis Presley. Then shortly thereafter on I think, the Ed Sullivan show, I see and hear Elvis perform “Hound Dog”. I was hooked! Then in 1957 when my mom and dad, now divorced, each took me to see Elvis in the movie “Jailhouse Rock”, I just knew I had to have a guitar. And I kept asking them both until finally 3 years later, on my 13th birthday my dad agreed to buy me my first guitar, a Harmony sunburst acoustic, and my mom agreed to pay for my guitar lessons.

Thank you God!

Taking guitar lessons was a commitment that I would keep to myself no matter what, if I wanted to achieve my goal. It meant that there were times when I had to give up hours of playing baseball during the nice weather months, with my cousin who lived around the corner, and our friends. Baseball was still my first love, but I had a new love in my life, and it was my guitar. I still watched Yankee baseball and I still played in the Brentwood Little League. I loved baseball, but I didn’t see it as a way of getting girls quite as much as singing and playing the guitar like Elvis did.

Now I was not a gifted musician like many who can just pick up a guitar or sit down at a piano and play without taking lessons. I had to work really hard at it, and my guitar teacher was there to show me the way. He was a really nice man, and had to be a really good teacher to get me to where I would go in my musical career. But it was my desire that kept pushing me. If you have desire and the will to succeed in something, it makes almost anything possible.

Then something happened after about 3 months into my guitar lessons that defined me forever. There was a talent contest at my school and when they had try outs, I decided to give it a shot. The only problem was that my guitar playing as of yet, didn’t allow me to accompany myself when I sang. So I sang Elvis’ “Don’t Be Cruel”, without any music and I made it into the show. After the try outs and before the show we had rehearsal time, so although I couldn’t play the guitar to accompany myself, I asked a fellow musician friend who played drums in the band at school to accompany me. So it was just me and a drummer on stage when it was time for my performance. I had slicked back hair like

Elvis with sideburns, and I wore a beige sweater with the collar up like Elvis wore. I was ready when the curtains went up and it was show time. What I wasn’t ready for was what happened next when I started to sing. I am not sure if I moved my legs or my hips at all like Elvis was noted for, because I never practiced that part of my Elvis moment, but maybe I did without realizing it? I don’t know as there were no cameras to record my performance, but the audience of my schoolmates erupted in a screaming frenzy that I can still hear and feel to this day. Of course then I didn’t realize that many were probably just mocking my Elvis impersonation, but it didn’t matter, because I did it, I loved the feeling I had, and I actually won the contest. I wanted more of this, but I couldn’t wait till I could add my guitar to my singing.

After the show, I found out that some of the guys in the school were maybe a bit jealous of me, and because of that there were a few altercations that followed.

One happened in the bathroom, and when I came home with a black eye, I told my mom that I walked into a door, which of course she didn’t believe. The guy that started it was also a guy that owed me a quarter on a bet that the Yankees would win the World Series 2 years earlier in 1958. So we had a bit of a history before, and since he never paid me what he owed me, plus got the better of me in this fight, it appeared I was the loser.

The next came on the school bus coming home one day, and I think that may have been a draw? At least I got my shot in and came home outwardly unaffected.

The next one was the last that I can attribute towards my one moment of fame, but it also was my favorite. It happened in the lunch room when I sat down on a chair that someone had deliberately put a thumbtack on. Wow did that hurt! But I didn’t scream. I just jumped up in pain! So when I heard someone laughing I knew it had to be him that did it, or else how would he know what just happened to me to laugh at all, right? We were having hot dogs and beans that day for lunch, and when I ran up to him to confront him, I instinctively lifted the table up, “spilling the beans” all over him. From that day forward his new name was “Beans Hoffman”. Ha, Ha.

During the next 2 years I would continue with my guitar lessons. I joined the dance band in school and had to learn some very hard chords to be able to stay in the band.

With help from my teacher, and a lot of practicing from a new study book called “Mickey Bakers’ Jazz Guitar”, I was able to play the chords needed although without an amplifier and playing in a 16 piece band, I am not sure if anyone knew if I played the chords correct or not, but I did and that was enough. Every day I would practice not only my lesson from exercise books, but I also practiced strumming my guitar while singing songs from a new songbook I got of popular songs.

When I was 15 I got my first electric guitar and amplifier. Both were made by Harmony. The guitar was blonde in color, with “f” holes, and pearl inlays. I loved it!

Now I was able to play in the dance band and actually be heard. The band leader actually “added” a guitar “intro” to the song “Sorrento”, which was something I had come up with at rehearsal one day. I was just messing around with an exercise I had learned and he “heard” me doing it because of my electric guitar. So when we performed the song at a concert, I was front and center in position on the stage and in sound. I was almost “in the audience” the way the stage was situated and again I loved it!

I used to visit my dad who lived in East Rockaway, about 45 minutes from where I lived with my mom in Brentwood. He used to pick me up every other weekend, and on one of those weekends I met the next love of my life, my future wife, Sue. She actually says we had “met” before in a neighboring town, when I was shopping for a mother’s day gift for my mom. She says I was eating an apple and I bought my mother an “apple” cookie jar. I can confirm that I bought my mom the apple cookie jar, but I cannot confirm I was eating an apple or actually “met” Sue then. I do remember her being across the street maybe and I may have waved in her direction when her friend Carol, who I knew through my dad knowing her dad, said hi to me.

How we really met was at my very first “band” job when I played for Carols’ sweet sixteen birthday party, outside in her back yard one summer day. I played with 2 other guys that I really didn’t know that well, but we kind of just “hooked up”, played a few songs, and got paid $5 apiece. My first “gig”!

Not only did I get paid, but I met Sue when she walked in from behind me with another girl named Pat. I “saw” the both of them from behind and with the tight shorts they were both wearing, I liked what I saw. I was singing “In The Still of The Night”, and I was wearing a “Ben Casey” shirt. That’s’ what they called it! Ha, Ha.

Now after the gig I actually made a mistake that I would never hear the end of to this day, when I asked Pat out on a date instead of Sue. But as fate would have it, Pat refused my offer. I think now that maybe she knew...