I love playing bass, and have for 51 years.  I started playing lead guitar, like everyone else back in the 60’s, not long after the Beatles played on The Ed Sullivan Show in February, 1964.  But when I developed my own lead parts, everyone would say, “that sounds like a cool bass part.”  Hmmmm!  I quickly picked up a Fender Jazz Bass, and never looked back.  (It is the coolest instrument, after all)

 

I gained much experience playing the NJ/NY Border Circuit in Suffern. Greenwood Lake, and Staten Island, NY, sometimes 7 nights a week as a teenager in the late 60's.  (N.J had a 21 year old drinking age, while N.Y.’s was 18)   Post high school, my bands opened twice for Joe Cocker, Mad Dogs and Englishmen at The Capital Theatres, Passaic, N.J. and Portchester, N.Y., and for The James Gang at Asbury Park Convention Center.

 

When that band broke up due to some tragic misfortune, I moved to the Jersey Shore.  I was lucky enough to jam with The Boss and Vinnie “Mad Dog” Lopez when Bruce Springsteen was between bands and putting together a musical project known as Dr. Zoom and the Sonic Boom in February, 1971; 4 years before Bruce became “The Boss”.

 

My college bands then went on to be a semi-house band for the Sunshine Inn, in Asbury Park, NJ in 1972.  The worst named band in history, “Gottschalk”, had the good fortune to be hired to open for established acts such as the old Fleetwood Mac, Blue Oyster Cult, and Edgar Winter, Rick Derringer and White Trash.