This is the story of how I got
started in music and then the military. I started at a very young age playing
accordion along with my older sister at an accordion school in Silverton, OH.
They were fairly common back then – group lessons and just the basics. We both
had small rented accordions. My sister Beth lost interest, but I stayed with it
and finally my folks had to get me a full size accordion. I stayed with it for
a couple of years after that. Mom would have me pull it out and perform anytime
someone visited the house. My big number was 76 Trombones.
When I lost interest, my brother
Fred and I both wanted to play drums so my father craftily found someone in
Kentucky who wanted to trade a set of drums for the accordion. We both got
pretty good on the drums. I started taking lessons from a guy who taught at
Lloyd Hazelbaker's Music in Oakley. I was his best student, learning both the
rudiments and set playing. We used the Joe Morello book called "Around the
Drums" I think.
Anyway, the drum teacher was
quitting so I asked Lloyd if I could have his job. Lloyd said I could, but that
he also taught beginner guitar students. So I picked a guitar off the wall and bought
it along with the first Mel Bay instruction book. I was literally staying a
page ahead of the little kids I was teaching. The more I played guitar, the
more I loved it and during that time, I had plenty of time to practice during
the day and most days would put in 8 to 10 hours practicing guitar. I had a
turntable and maybe one Kenny Burrell and one Joe Pass record.
Cut to the Vietnam war and the draft
lottery. I believe my number was very low, I always remember 38. That means I
would have been drafted very early, so I took myself to downtown Cincinnati and
visited every recruiter until the Army recruiter said I could audition for the
School of Music. They gave me a bus ticket to Virginia Beach, VA and I stayed
in some seedy motel and I guess I rented a car.
The next day I went to the School of
Music and auditioned on drums and guitar. They seemed to be happy and said I
would be hearing from the recruiter. After I returned to Cincinnati I received
a letter saying I had been accepted to the School of Music. Little did I know
it was on drums and not guitar.
So off I went to boot camp at Ft
Leonard Wood, MO also fondly known as Ft Lost in the Woods. After I got through
that I moved on to the SOM. I was putting in a lot of practice units on the
guitar and was called into the office and informed I was a drummer and had to
practice only drums. I asked them if I could practice guitar after putting in
40 units of drum practice each week and they said yes.
After I passed my F1 (first half of
training) audition on drums I was then allowed to minor on guitar for the second
half of my training. As soon as the guitar teacher heard me he knew I was his
ticket out of there. So before I had my F2 audition on drums I had a staff
audition on guitar and was hired as the guitar instructor.
Here is the real twist, the Army did
not have an official MOS ( Military
Occupational Specialty) for guitar at that time, so my MOS remained 02M (drums)
and I was filling a saxophone instructor slot for the SOM. However, the Army
wanted to add guitar as an MOS so I was tasked with writing the first field
audition for it and also in the process became the very first official Army
guitarist - 02T. Then on my second hitch there I became First Sergeant of the
Staff and Faculty Company at the SOM with the MOS of 02Z (band senior
sergeant).
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