Hi. Welcome to my website.
A few words about me and my music. I'm an
American underground Indie artist now residing in
Europe. I have a selective hippie/ bohemian
coffee house rendezvous type audience but my
music has also been used in short films and
commercials. The advantage of being such an
extravagant artist is that one doesn't have to do
anything fashionable and commercial or to compete
with others. So, I write songs when inspired and
make recordings when I've got what it takes to do
that.
The environment I grew up in had a great
influence on my music. 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 and
many American artists were born, lived and worked
in. But I grew up in that part of the Township
that was near Calumet
City on
the Indiana boarder 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 on Calumet City's Strip. Calumet
City is also featured or mentioned in many major
movies.
Calumet in North American Indian language
means "Peace Pipe". So some of us used
to call it "Peace Pipe City"; though
most earlier folks used to call it "The
Strip" or "Sin 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 smiling faces left with
happy memories of a different era. Later I moved
to the heart of Chicago's Gold
Coast and
lived near Rush
Street and
Old
Town,
which were other great entertainment centers, and
from there I moved to Europe.
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 and on the street. So, I developed my own
extravagant style and method that I call "Street
Style" that is different from what one would
learn in a music school in those days. 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.


Chicago 1966

Warsaw, Poland
2009
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