Baby Papa's Musical Path

So, I've been playing music for about 5 decades and figured it's probably time to go ahead and share some that story.

When I was about 8 years old my mom came to me and asked me if I wanted to play a musical instrument I said “Yes! I wanna play the drums!”

Her reply? “Great, we bought you a piano” I've been in the intersection between keyboards and drums ever since!

After several reluctant years of piano lessons and virtually no practice, my brother Randy (an amazing musician himself) showed me how to do a Blues lick. This changed my life and made my folks probably wish they had bought me a violin instead.

In high school, I wrote my first songs and played in my first band (Crystal Apple).

Around that same time, I was jamming with my then-choir mate and future coconspirator Tony Cavagnaro, who tragically passed on the way to a gig in 2007. I remember jamming Stairway to Heaven in his living room when his sister came down and told me I was playing TOO LOUD… a refrain that Tony would repeat for the next 15 years.

He went off to play in a metal band while I ended up playing in a Grateful Dead band (Natty Bumpo).

We met musically in the middle when we started funk rock band (Rub the Buddha) that turned into an original world jam band that is still going today (The Buddhahood).

During that time, I explored different world roots music playing mandolin in bluegrass and quirky avant-garde bands (Fun Factory). I still play a lot of that repertoire.

I played organ in blues (Mysterious Blues Band), afropop (Djoliba), and roots-reggae outfits (Sweet Life), and percussion (African djembe and Turkish darabuka) for traditional dance ensembles.

Later throw some Brazilian samba and forro (Z’Bumba), a little cumbia and salsa, and a heap of zydeco and you get a taste of my fear of Spotify genre dropdowns.

I have a habit of leaving bands right before they record, so in keeping with that, check out a couple playlists of the great bands I’ve been lucky enough to play with: