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This is an
album inspired by Amsterdam's quaint bohemian
atmosphere, its picturesque canals, crooked
rickety-shack houses, mellow coffeeshops, narrow
alleyways, houseboats, cannabis culture and the
Red-light district.
I'm an American guitarist and songwriter now
residing in Europe. I write music when inspited
and make recordings when I have what it takes to
do that for a selective coffee house rendezvous
type audience. The environment I grew up in had a
great influence on my creativity. It was Chicago's South East Side, in the
area that comprised the former Hyde
Park Township where many Americans such as
President Barak
Obama came
from. To be exect, I grew up in that part of the
Township that was near Calumet
City where
during the Prohibition night clubs featured Las
Vegas-style showgirl revues and artists such as Sun Ra, Frank
Sinatra, Sophie
Tucker, Keith
Speaks or Gypsy
Rose Lee
used to play. Calumet City was also featured or
mentioned in many major
movies and
went by many different names such as The Strip or
Sin City. Calumet in North American
Indian language means "Peace Pipe" so
some of us also used to call it "Peace Pipe
City". I believe that Calumet City was the
prototype for Las
Vegas, and
in many ways was an oasis of freedom like Amsterdam in the Netherlands (Holland)
still is today. The only things remaining after
those heydays of Cal City are American music and
culture and the many happy memories from a
different era. Later, I moved to the heart of
Chicago's Gold
Coast near
Rush
Street and
Old
Town,
where an illegal backhouse tavern operated on
Wells Street through the 1970-80s called The
Blues Brothers Bar that was started by John Belushi
and Dan Aykroyd who later became better known
from their 1980 Blues
Brothers
movie.
Chicago is the home
of many types of American music such as Sunset
Cafe, Big
Bands, Jazz music, Gospel
music, Rhytm
& Blues, Soul
music, Country music i.e. Barn
Dance - Grand
Ole Opre, Chicago
Blues, House
Music, Acid
House music, Blues
Brothers, Hip-Hop music called Chi-town
and much
more... It was also a great American
folk music revival center for an
elite group of the bohemian scene. And like
many traditional Chicago musicians, I
didn't have any guitar lessons but
learned to play music by myself on the
street. So, I developed my own style and
method that I call "Street Style",
which is different from what one would
learn in a traditional music school. But
basically speaking, what I really learned
there was to play music from the heart or
the soul and not to pay too much
attention on being technically correct. I
also learned that the best songwriters
are not necessarily the best singers or
musicians, and that helped me overcome
many complexes about my limitations.
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