Hi All - Here's an excerpt from upcoming book MUSIC LESSONS: A Young Baby Boomer's Journey Through Sound and Time

So there I was, a young journeyman musician moving from one group to the other at age eight, nine, ten, somehow avoiding the pitfalls of drink, drugs, and women. A few years down the road when I was about thirteen or fourteen, I was playing in a group with Steve Ettinger on bass, Buzzie Dumas on drums, and Jimmy Kessel on guitar, and had a good old fashioned life changing experience.  We were practicing a song called “Stormy Monday.” After the rehearsal, we went upstairs and Jimmy put a record on the stereo player. For me, back in the day, around 1970-71, the stereo systems were starting to become like one of the instruments in the band. No digital coldness, you could just feel those speakers, and the music breathing, something more than alive.  Jimmy wanted us to hear a particular recording of Stormy Monday. He put on the record, the soupy electric power of the needle hitting the empty record grooves setting the stage, and then - bang, the deepest richest sound I’d ever heard coming out of a speaker, or for that matter, anywhere in my universe, bellowed from the speakers. This was a live record, and you could hear/feel the ambiance of the location, the stage, the hall, the passionate commitment of the musicians, the excitement of the audience. The guitars were shining and crying, and spoke like I’d never heard an instrument speak before; the organ created a backdrop that felt as large as the auditorium itself (this was my first time hearing a Hammond organ so vividly);  the vocals were somehow gritty and velvety at the same time, and full of human soul. This would have been enough to change everything, but then, when the record finished, Jimmy put on the first song from the same record. More sound of the needle hitting the groove, then I heard a voice from the speaker, “OK, the Allman Brothers Band,” and the first lick of Statesboro Blues vaulted out of the speakers. That was it, my world had changed.