and I practiced every day after school. The steel strings cut through my soft fingertips until I built up calluses on my left hand.
My father would often be crooning “Moon River” while Linda played the organ in the living room, tipping his head up and closing his eyes when he hit a high note. She was nimble with the foot pedals, her legs strong now. Building them up from her leg operation was the reason we got the organ. I wanted a piano.
But now that I had the guitar, I started singing as I played, and my father seemed to take an interest. One day as I played in my room, sitting on my bed, I heard my father say to my mother, “She’s not half bad you know. Maybe I should show her some things about singing.” That was the first time I considered that I might have a talent all my own.
From then on, I could count on my father showing up while I practiced. He’d lean up against the doorframe of my bedroom for a few minutes at a time and shout advice as I sang.
“Always hold your notes on the vowel, not the consonant. No one wants to hear ‘Mmmmmoon River.’”
I listened hard and tried to do what he said. He never came into the room or sat down to sing with me. He was always on his way somewhere else in the house when he stopped by.
I never did learn to play “Moon River” or “The Impossible Dream,” so my father never sang with me. Linda and I couldn’t figure out how to play together, either. I strummed the chords of a song, and she played the melody, but it never came out asmusic. So, when the family came over—the aunts and uncles and cousins—it was still just my father and Linda at the organ. I don’t know why I never sang with them. It seemed a kind of intrusion on my father’s singing style. Sometimes they’d ask me to play something for them on guitar. I was a solo act.
When I sang, though, it transported me. I was surgically removed.
My father thought I should record a demo and took me to a music store in Newark that had a small recording studio in the back. This sounded to me like he knew the music business and, best of all, that he thought I had some talent.
When we got there, the manager of the store led me into a tiny booth and went back around behind a glass window with my father. The ceiling was plastered with foam rubber, and the walls were lined with egg cartons. The guy behind the glass pointed to the headphones hanging on the wall, and I put them on. I adjusted the microphone and took out my guitar, sure I’d be discovered any second.
I remembered that my father said we’d be charged by the minute, so I didn’t dawdle. I tuned up quickly and started my song. My own voice reverberated in my head, and the guitar sounded distant through the one microphone.
Miraculously, we walked out with a thick vinyl record, and I wondered which record store would now sell it for us.
“What do we do with it now, Dad?” I asked.
“Well, let me talk to a few people I know and see what we can do. We’ll see, Juicy.”
His belief in me that day is what I remember most.
M Y MOTHER GOT me my first gig at a fund-raiser. My big numbers were “What the World Needs Now” and “More.” Suddenly, I was the family star, and I relished the shift in attention from Linda to me.
Rehearsing with my father for the show was the most time we ever spent together alone. For our rehearsals, I would sit on the couch in the living room with my guitar, and he’d sit on the chair facing me. He taught me to breathe correctly while I sang: “Not with your shoulders, from the diaphragm—your shoulders shouldn’t move.” How to hit the high notes: “Think about the note, hear it in your head, and you’ll reach it, relax your throat muscles.” And the all-important: “Look at your audience when you sing, make eye contact, and smile.”
My father was a featured act at our swim club each summer, singing his favorite songs from musicals like The Pajama Game and South Pacific . My mother would be
My father would often be crooning “Moon River” while Linda played the organ in the living room, tipping his head up and closing his eyes when he hit a high note. She was nimble with the foot pedals, her legs strong now. Building them up from her leg operation was the reason we got the organ. I wanted a piano.
But now that I had the guitar, I started singing as I played, and my father seemed to take an interest. One day as I played in my room, sitting on my bed, I heard my father say to my mother, “She’s not half bad you know. Maybe I should show her some things about singing.” That was the first time I considered that I might have a talent all my own.
From then on, I could count on my father showing up while I practiced. He’d lean up against the doorframe of my bedroom for a few minutes at a time and shout advice as I sang.
“Always hold your notes on the vowel, not the consonant. No one wants to hear ‘Mmmmmoon River.’”
I listened hard and tried to do what he said. He never came into the room or sat down to sing with me. He was always on his way somewhere else in the house when he stopped by.
I never did learn to play “Moon River” or “The Impossible Dream,” so my father never sang with me. Linda and I couldn’t figure out how to play together, either. I strummed the chords of a song, and she played the melody, but it never came out asmusic. So, when the family came over—the aunts and uncles and cousins—it was still just my father and Linda at the organ. I don’t know why I never sang with them. It seemed a kind of intrusion on my father’s singing style. Sometimes they’d ask me to play something for them on guitar. I was a solo act.
When I sang, though, it transported me. I was surgically removed.
My father thought I should record a demo and took me to a music store in Newark that had a small recording studio in the back. This sounded to me like he knew the music business and, best of all, that he thought I had some talent.
When we got there, the manager of the store led me into a tiny booth and went back around behind a glass window with my father. The ceiling was plastered with foam rubber, and the walls were lined with egg cartons. The guy behind the glass pointed to the headphones hanging on the wall, and I put them on. I adjusted the microphone and took out my guitar, sure I’d be discovered any second.
I remembered that my father said we’d be charged by the minute, so I didn’t dawdle. I tuned up quickly and started my song. My own voice reverberated in my head, and the guitar sounded distant through the one microphone.
Miraculously, we walked out with a thick vinyl record, and I wondered which record store would now sell it for us.
“What do we do with it now, Dad?” I asked.
“Well, let me talk to a few people I know and see what we can do. We’ll see, Juicy.”
His belief in me that day is what I remember most.
M Y MOTHER GOT me my first gig at a fund-raiser. My big numbers were “What the World Needs Now” and “More.” Suddenly, I was the family star, and I relished the shift in attention from Linda to me.
Rehearsing with my father for the show was the most time we ever spent together alone. For our rehearsals, I would sit on the couch in the living room with my guitar, and he’d sit on the chair facing me. He taught me to breathe correctly while I sang: “Not with your shoulders, from the diaphragm—your shoulders shouldn’t move.” How to hit the high notes: “Think about the note, hear it in your head, and you’ll reach it, relax your throat muscles.” And the all-important: “Look at your audience when you sing, make eye contact, and smile.”
My father was a featured act at our swim club each summer, singing his favorite songs from musicals like The Pajama Game and South Pacific . My mother would be
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