February 15, 2024 • 45 mins
From: https://www.localwineevents.com/view/event/live-music-ron-soltis/796714
Ron Soltis is a wonderful entertainer, being a professional musician since 1991. He mixes it up with standards, sentimental favorites, some country Johnny Cash, Elvis, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, etc. to more classic rock, Billy Joel, Elton John, Beatles, Paul Simon, etc. He is well-versed at taking requests from the audience too
Ron Soltis is a wonderful entertainer, being a professional musician since 1991. He mixes it up with standards, sentimental favorites, some country Johnny Cash, Elvis, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, etc. to more classic rock, Billy Joel, Elton John, Beatles, Paul Simon, etc. He is well-versed at taking requests from the audience too
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
God knows it. This isn't unvideo and you are bless your heart.
This is the COVID podcast Quit Pittsburgh'smusic scene. Oh welcome in. I'm
(00:20):
your host, Johnny heart Well alongwith Andy Pougard. Today we talked to
the very funny and very talented RonSolstice. I went, I made two
trips in the airport this past threedays and Ford pitt and Squirrel Tunnel Nightmare.
It took me two hours each wayeach way, and there was that
big concert Deading Company. Yeah,it's just ridiculous. And I think of
(00:43):
my friend Sean Black and he's acomedian and he had a T shirt Mane
years and thirty years ago. Itwas an acronym for Pittsburgh. It was
people in the tunnels. You reallyget hurt. You know the big haze
that's that's over the city. Youknow what that's Dead and Company, my
(01:04):
friend. Okay, that's how westart every show. I heard I've listening
to Benny and the Jets silobates.Ron. How are you, sir?
I'm great, Johnny. It's pleasureto be here. You know, we
worked together at Jelly Rolls Value.You are getting new I didn't know that
(01:26):
yeah, so, uh yeah,it's this it was. I wasn't like
a full I would just go thereperiodically, back at my b ninety four
days, which is ages and nights. Yeah yeah, Oh my goodness,
gracious I forgot you guys. Wonderyou look so familiar? Yeah, well,
(01:47):
you know I've been in you know, Pittsburgh radio since the earth was
cooling. I remember that too,But you're no stranger to Pittsburgh, So
give us your resume, my resume. Well, I uh well, jelly
Rolls started in ninety one, butI was a graduate of Central Catholic nineteen
eighty and I started playing in bandsat the Raspberry Rhino and Shady Side on
Walnut Street. Now it's a bananarepublic. What are you gonna do?
(02:12):
That goes on that show biz?You know, it seems like every time
we have an interview, somebody talksabout the clubs. And then the decade
was the other one. Yeah,yeah, the first ever heard of that?
What is that decade? You sillyman, you rascal. Yeah,
the place was uh okay, thefirst well, the Raspberry Rhino was our
(02:36):
They used to let us play.Well, we made peanuts, literally peanut
a bag of penis is how theypaid us. But we loved it because
it was a I was underage,you know, in the bar, working
and it was fantastic. Yeah.How old were you? I was eighteen
nineteen twenty then twenty one. Theysaid you're too old. Yeah, we
can't afford more than two bags ofone bag, that's it, you only
(02:58):
get one. So the first bandof it was called Blind River, and
that was a high school band andwas named after the Neil Young song Long
May You Run? Was it blackingBlind River nineteen sixty two? Sounds like
the Church Lady? And then theRacket. The Racket was the second band
I was in, playing all theselittle local bars, maybe like twenty bucks
a man, something like that.First gig do you remember your first game
(03:21):
gig was playing in Central Catholic Auditorium? Well, yeah, the first gig
was at the Holiday House in Monrovia. We called ourselves One Night's Stand and
it was for the Swiss vol Datedance for the Valentine's Formal prom and they
all they it was nineteen seventy eight. Everybody wanted disco, they wanted Saturday
(03:42):
Night fever and we were playing theStones, the Who the Kings and the
Beatles show, and new way wedid the cars was brand new. We
did just what I needed and theydidn't like us. But we learned that
our theme song that we learned,we played it five times was we got
to Bob Zieger. You played inmost yes, for real, for real
(04:02):
because they, you know, thetough jocks, they just wanted to slow
dance. They don't want to,they don't want to got there and boogie
woogie. You know, they didn'tthey don't want to shake their tail feathers
out, you know, in frontof their you know. It was a
very macho, bravado kind of schoolSwiss fel. You remember Integrat you we
probably made fifty bucks a man.Oh yeah, not too bad for high
(04:27):
school kids. Yeah. The seventies, I know, I know. Salrochetty
was our drummer. If you knowthis guy, I don't know, you
know, Big Day Entertainment. Yeah, he's an eight booking agent. Now,
oh okay, nice guy. Yeah, it was great. We caught
himself one night stand, terrible name, So that's how many times we played
one night. But that was good. So I got to say that I
played at the Holiday House. Rantsof course that wasn't the main room.
(04:48):
It was up the like the receptionroom for the for the corporate events wherever
they's a sponsor up there. Butit was. But let's go even further
back. When did you disc ever? Did you come from a family of
musicians? No, no, itskips a generation or seven. Really,
I'll tell you exactly when I started. The first music I really got into
(05:09):
and learned and absorbed was mister Rogers. I was a sick kid. I
had asthma. They was undiagnosed,So I remember laying in bed with pneumonia.
I was four or fives, andit just happened that Queed just started
airing this new show mister Rogers neighbor, so you know, and he looked
like he was talking to me becausehe looked into the camera, because as
he said in the movie, hejust looked at one little bukaroo out there
(05:31):
in the audience, and and Iwas one of his buckaroos. It was.
I loved the guy, and hewas so calming. Later on with
my kids as well, but uh, I had like five of his albums,
And what a great message. Youknow, you are special just the
way you are. Who can beatthat message? And the music that was
in the in the in the showis amazing. It is amazing, and
(05:55):
it influenced you. It certainly did. Yeah, and he wrote all those
songs. He was amazing and hedoesn't get credit as a songwriter, but
the guy was really I not onlyshould he be canonized as a saint,
but he was a great songwriter.I remember the words. So there's a
great song he wrote, tree treeTree Tree Tree Tree Tree Tree Tree,
treat tree Tree. I'm just I'mjoking about the lyrics. And you know,
(06:16):
but you are special in the daytime, in the nighttime, anytime that
you feel the right for a friendshipwith me. See spe cee a a
friend that was spelled friend there.But anyway, yeah, I love that
guy. And I watched him forabout three years straight and listened to the
song sang along and that's my momsaid, oh he sings. Well,
you know, so they bought mea piano from that you know, it's
(06:41):
like seven and it was a Colderand Campbell sponsored by Fred Rogers from Joseph
Horns. Yeah for real, Yeah, this is crazy. So h yeah.
So that's really and then from there, you know, all our generation
we all wanted to be in theArchies and the Partridges for me the Monkeys,
so uh, that was I rememberI was seven and arguing with my
(07:01):
dad about the Archie's. We hadlike an existential metaphysical debate, and he's
like, that's a cartoon. That'snot a real. Guy's like, no,
what do you mean? Listen tohim, sugar, dun, dunt.
That's listened to his voice. Howcan you say he's not real anyway?
All right, So other than theArchies and Boy and mister Rodgert,
Beatles, the Beatles, I canclearly call. One day, listen to
(07:25):
the radio, and I heard Yesterday, and then I heard My Love by
Paul McCartney and Wings Thanks around seventytwo. Seventy yeah, it must have
been seventy two, And I said, that sounds like the same singer.
So I put it together and Ilearned every Beatles song. I was a
paper boy the Pittsburgh Press, andI always had a few dollars in my
(07:46):
pocket, so I used to buya record. At least my brother and
I we'd buy records every week,a forty five or an album. And
I still have them all. Youhave thousands of them. And I listened
to them so closely and Entian overand over and over. I just had
to learn how to play uh heyJude, and let It Be and Saturday
in the Park by Chicago, thisthose little piano things, you know,
(08:07):
I just I needed to recreate thatbecause it was magical to me. It
still is. Actually, so manyartists were influenced by the Beatles, but
they're really not known as for theirpiano music. And it's really I mean,
Paul McCartney is really an underrated pianoplayer. Yes, yes he is.
He's a left handed piano player.So if you listen to Lady Madonna
(08:30):
this, the right hand just goesholds to Courts Doom, Dune Dune because
he's a lefty. And then ofcourse Billy Preston too is you know,
like talk about he was my Thatwas the first album I ever bought me
and the kids was was a ILove Billy Press fantastic. Yeah. So
the Beatles in the the you know, the seventies. You grew up in
(08:52):
the early seventies, right, soAlton John was a huge He was our
elvis at the time. And thenI think he's amazing, you know if
in my opinion, maybe the greatestentertainer ever. A lot of people,
you know, talk about Elvis andthings like that, but do you think
about it. You know, helanded in like nineteen seventies, owned the
(09:13):
seventies, uh, you know,had a severe drug problem, and then
came back in the eighties, andthen came back in the nineties and he's
still putting out records and he's stillperforming. His Goodbye Tour has been going
on for forty years. Yeah,so hello, I must be going.
I cannot say I came to sayI must be going. You know that's
(09:35):
grouchy Lyrics just killed that quote.I went on my tombstone one treat treat
tree. I love you, Freddy. All right, So how about you?
What in your opinion? Yes,when it comes to uh, you
know, piano players, who youknow? Who do you uh? Oh
my gosh, oh you put meon the spot. My gosh, my
(09:58):
gosh. What Elton John like him? I probably favor more of the older
piano players Little Richard, Yeah,yeah, Jerry l Lewis, Yeah,
yeah, how about you? Howabout you? Well, I'm big Billy
Joel fan. I mean the differencebetween Billy Joe and Alton John is oh
(10:22):
that Billy writes his own lyrics andmusic, and Elton John magically can take
a piece of me. Oh youdidn't, Bernie, Yeah, isn't that
amazing? So he just gets thesheet of music with all those classic songs
he's written and just composes a melodyaround this poem. You know, every
classic song from Elton John was writtenthat way, and it blows my mind.
(10:43):
I saw him do something on atalk show once where he took like
a phone book and was just makingup music to it, you know,
reading like a manual for you know, carburetor or something. He was just
making up a beautiful melody because that'shis He's got this amazing, uncanny gift
to do to make music and foranything. But they both do the candid
but Bernie comes off with some amazinglyrics and then I've seen different interviews and
(11:09):
documentaries on Elton how he kind oftakes Bernie's words and then just almost has
that in that melody in his headinstantaneously. Incredible, isn't it. I
don't know how to do it,honestly. I see people playing the piano.
The fact that there's people that doI wouldn't even know where to begin
(11:31):
because you're using two hands and you'replaying two different things. I don't know.
I don't know. Well, youknow it's middle C start. But
you know it's like baseball, becauseI always tell beginners it's like you play
music, you play baseball, andin baseball you throw with one hand and
catch with the other. So,uh, it's if you keep it simple,
and something can scare you away andcomplicate and say, oh, you've
(11:54):
got to play all the classical youknow, the great classics. He can
play by year two. It's justone way to do it. There's any
way you get to it is fine, you know, if you have to
read sheet music and play that way. And a lot of people say them
the same thing about left and righthand. But basically, the left hand
is playing the bass, the righthand is playing the chords the rhythm,
(12:15):
and you're singing the lead. SoI learned to play to sing. So
that's I'm doing a chord with myright hand, a bass note with my
left hand. I'm singing the melody. So it's like a one man trio
in a way. Underpaid though,I got So did you take did you
take lessons? I did? Itook lessons from for about five years.
(12:35):
Uh Sarah Owens on Bradock Avenue,swiss Well. And she was a sweet
older woman and when I walked intoher house it was like the world turned
to black and white from color outside. Yeah, even way beyond that,
we're like Sarah Bernhardt. But shewas a sweet lady, and I said,
I want to play the song.I brought her a sheet music for
(12:56):
lean On Me by Bill Withers,and she said, we don't play songs
like that here, we play youknow what I'm telling you to play.
So that's what kind of divided there. But for five years it took lessons
from merch. So I definitely learnedthe basics. But when you're in bands,
you just play. You know,what key are you and what's the
core changes. That's how you playreally in pop bands and rock and roll
bands, you know all that kindof stuff. Now if you're playing jazz,
(13:18):
it's just a complicated version of that. You know, it's just like
there's what key G minor, okay, and so you know how to riff,
and you learned the vocabulary and allthe different keys. You know.
That's it's it's really if you keepit simple it's really not so complicated.
You know, you complicated as youget older and you try to you try
to change it up and make itmore you you know, make it about
(13:39):
like well, I think it's soyou're experimenting all the time. And uh,
you know that line from Bob Dylansong he not busy being born is
busy dying? What's like that musically? And I think, you know,
comedically probably too for comics. Youknow they if they stop they just get
an act and they stick with it. It gets stale. You've got to
keep learning new stuff. And that'swhat keeps me going. I'm always learning
(14:01):
something new. I go backwards though. I listened like I'm learning Billie Holiday
good Morning Heartache today because that's sucha beautiful song, you know, And
I'm always learned. I just learnedstuff that I love, you know,
the Beatles. All you need islove. That's really the key to it.
If you love what you do,you're you're a wealthy man. That's
my philosophy. Do you remember thefirst song you ever wrote? Yeah,
(14:24):
it was called Elizabeth, and itwas my dad's mom had just passed away.
I was seven, and it wentto Elizabeth, where have you gone
when you were seven? Yeah,wow, because I didn't understand, like
where'd she go? You know?And she died? It blewed my mind.
It's pretty deep for a seven yearold. I was a deep kid.
(14:46):
What happened? I went to school, all right? So you went
through lessons and then you wrote yourfirst song? Right when did you first?
Do you remember the first band youever formed and who was in it
and where did you form? Iwas in high school and it was called
(15:09):
Blind River. I was mentioning thatand they did like a lot of Neil
Young songs. Then they did Yes, they did pure Prairie League game.
He was brand new at the time. And then we did a sentimental lady
Bob Welsh and Fleetwood Max song.If you remember that one, it's the
dance song of the night. ButI played a Univox keyboard. They didn't
have many electric keyboards at the time. One was called Offender Rhoads and it's
(15:33):
the real bellsy song that you hearon just the way you are Billy Joel's
song. And so you either hadto play this huge piano called a CP
seventy Yamaha, which was it tooktwo guys to carry, and so a
real piano that had electronic mics init, so and all that you see
in the seventies, they all usedthem. In the early eighties too,
they were still using this road warriorof a piano. So nowadays you can
(15:56):
you know, it's so light youcan move them anywhere. Those days,
I played this unifox. I thinkit had forty four keys and had three
sound settings. It had piano,electric piano, and harpsichord, because we
all know harpsichord is an oft usedsound these days, and I always thought
it was funny. Never used theharpsichord unless you played Martha my dear right
(16:18):
right right, or or the mounstersor might right, oh that's even better.
Yeah. But I played Hey Jude, and I played your song by
Elton John and it was the firsttime I played in front of my friends
ever, and it was terrified,you know, because music at the time,
you know, Central Catholic is allabout athletics. And Danny Marino was
(16:41):
a year younger than older than me, and he was there. I remember
that, and he's like, hegave me the thumbs up. It's cool,
sulted, like thanks Dan, hestills me five bucks. But I'm
not gonna you know, that wasa big deal because my friends all loved
it, and I thought they wouldlike make fun of me. You know,
honestly, first time you play infront of your your jock friends,
(17:04):
it's a bit terrifying. You know, you think that is, you know,
call your names and stuff like that. But it was just see,
I was just the opposite. Iwas a jock who had friends who played
music, and I always envied theirtheir ability to comprehend music. To me,
it's almost like a different language.So when I smart, but you
(17:26):
know, it was but it waslike, you know, like I said,
if what musicians are able to dois is an anathema to me,
I just I just don't. Idon't get it. But but I appreciate
the fact that that's the key.You appreciate the love that you hear.
You know, when you get goodcooking from your mom and you can taste
(17:47):
the love in it, you canhear it in the music too, the
same way. Outside I always makeanalogies like that and Danny Marino, by
the way, I was a jocktoo. I was. My first hero
is ROBERTA. Clementy, and mysecond was John Lennon. So I lost
both of them, and so uhDanny Moore. I wanted to be a
pirate in the worst way, andthat's exactly I was, in the worst
way. But uh, I reallywe all did. It was we played
eight hours a day and from thatI went to music eight hours a day.
(18:11):
Because when freshman year at high school, I tried off for the freshman
team at Central Catholic baseball team,that is because I loved baseball and I
still do. And Marina was onthe mound and your order, and I
didn't know who he was. Hehad the curly frow and he's like,
have you hit this kid? Youcan make the team. So he thought
three striketure. I didn't see theball until and I said, where's the
(18:32):
piano. That's when I could baseball. So I can honestly say that he
quit. He ended my baseball careerinstantly. See, I wanted to be
a pirate too. I wanted toraid ships and then and steal all No,
I was like, you know,harder, all right, So all
right, now we're up to speed. We're up in high school. Now.
(18:52):
Once you graduate, then where doesgo to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh
to be a musician choice, butI was. I could always do faces
and portraits and I was a prettygood drawer. Basically, yeah, yeah,
should that's right. We had afew options with the fact, Yeah,
Sonny Pugar memorial a couple of times, Yeah, Jimmy Hendricks one with
(19:17):
guitar picks to it. Anyway,So from there I would bring my acoustic
guitar to the hallways that was onPenn Avenue in Pittsburgh, and uh,
I started playing in the in thebreaks, and it became that was like
my identity was still there because everybodytried to talk you out of music.
They say, oh, you can't. You know, you can't really earn
a living musically in Pittsburgh. Butso I I got into music really heavily
(19:44):
and uh, but then I tooka day job. In eighty four.
I was in a band called TheShades with Bill Toms for a couple of
years and Jaffo on drums, MickNewmire, Joe Pleski on keyboard. Great
band. And the biggest regret inmy life was quitting this band in nineteen
eighty four and take in a normaljob with my dad. It's this insurance
company just so I could get married, and you know, it was a
(20:04):
whole. It was like a triplebomb. Down the rabbit hole, down
the sinkhole. For so. Youknow, there's a song by David Bowie
Beware of this song ding Rule ofnineteen eighty four, and I hear that,
I think, yeah, I shouldhave listened to that song because I
made I quit a band I loved. We're doing originals and you know,
(20:25):
the Clarks opened up for us atthe Metropole. Was that what it was
called? The place? Yeah?And no, no, no, the
place on Bomb Boulevard. I can'tthink of the name of right now.
Graffiti. Yeah, yeah, wewere anyway. So I went back to
music full time in nineteen ninety andI said, I'm gonna try this one
(20:45):
more time. For six years.Six years you sold insurance with your father,
Yeah, basically collected money and McKeesport. It was like it was
like a glorified paper boy, andI cashed into their policies. They I
don't have any money, so well, you know, you have equity built
up. So I was doing whatthe company didn't want me to do,
which was, you know it's along time ago, but wait, so
(21:06):
go ahead, No, I wasgoing to say, during that six years,
did you really miss me? Idid. What I did was to
cover that need in my life musically. I bought a four track cassette player
from a swiss Field music store whichis no longer there also, and there's
a cassette player, but you couldlearn how to overdub and make demos with
this thing. I had a drummachine and keyboards, guitar, bass,
(21:27):
and I love doing harmon. He'strying to be like Brian Wilson, the
Beach Boys type stuff, you know, And so I did that. I
played with Al's title for All theCrackers guitar player off and on, but
it mostly didn't play any music.Why I did that? And I said,
I'm gonna get it one more shot. And I haven't looked back yet
in since now. You haven't doneanything else but music after that? Right?
(21:48):
Music, that's right? And peopleask you sometimes what's your real job,
what's your day job? You know, which we all hate that question
if we do it full time.So there's a Monty Python line, which
is, you know, I'm atqualifoid bregncis and only do this because of
luck beating my own boss. SoI'm very lucky and very blessed and grateful.
(22:12):
All right, So getting back intomusic in the early nineteen nineties,
pick us up there. Okay,So I got a job at sand Castle.
So the first time dueling pianos wasin Pittsburgh was at sand Castle water
Park. So that was from Aprilto September that summer. Salvin Toward,
(22:33):
Jimmy Sapiens, and myself Steve Cook. The four of us played four nights
a week Wednesday through Saturday. EightI forget the time, eight to twelve
probably, and I was loving it. It was so I actually had landed
a full time job playing piano andsinging, which I was like, I
couldn't believe I was doing it.So from there I went to Jelly Rolls.
They just opened up, and soI was on the first staff there
(22:56):
with Pete Moran, Mike Williams,Whiz and uh. We played there a
long time and no drum kit,no guitars, no bass, just two
pianos. And you know, microguys killed you guys were absolutely you know,
phenomenal musicianship. But you know,because you played with different guys,
you know every time, you know, because you traded out, you couldn't
(23:18):
just play four hours a night,you know, you had that you needed
the break. But at that pointit was six hours and six hours eighty
two that Jelly Rolls. It waseighty two, five nights a week.
And then they stopped having Sundays becauseSunday is in a good time for Pittsburgh.
Everybody's looking at the game, right, right, whatever it was right,
So, uh, the I metmy wife there. She just so
my first job was tied in witha bad marriage and no kids, and
(23:41):
it was just, you know,we both agreed, this isn't working.
So it was like I had asecond rebirth, our first rebirth, but
a second life with Jelly Rolls iswhere it really starts. Because I meet
Jen and we've been together since ninetytwo. We have three kids, and
you know, she's my second wifeand we're real happy. And she's artistic
(24:03):
as well. She's yeah, she'sthe backstage person. She does. Uh
she works at CMU, the wardrobesupervisor and president of the local theater Union.
So she's real involved in the backstagestuff. You know, she's seamstress.
Uh, she's worked all the exactlyexactly a little tiny dancer. How
(24:26):
did you two meet. Oh ohyeah, Well, my son Ben was
the drummer at Murdochs, and Ithought I'd go down and see him Charlie
Murdo's Dueling Piano show, which Ronwas involved with for about ten years or
more, six to sixteen. Yeah, And so I went to Charlie Murdocks
(24:48):
to see Ben play, and Iwent with my bff and Kathy, and
we sat there and enjoyed the showtremendously. And of course after that I
went down a lot. But afterthe show is over, I went over
Kathy I think recognized you, andit turned out that my friend's brother and
(25:11):
Ron's brother were really good friends growingup together. And to me, it
just illustrates that how Pittsburgh everybody knowsevery ride you and that's a small world.
And then after that we just becamegood friends, You and I.
Yeah, and Kathy remembered you sojoyce y' well that's what made yeah.
(25:36):
Sure I played baseball. You playedbaseball with him, right right, right?
So so you were really the firstone I met out of that Charlie
Murders group, except for Ben,who was you know, I met him,
I met you. Can I introduceyou to Ben? You knew him.
When it comes into dueling pianos,it's it's almost and it's it's a
(26:02):
different kind of art form. Itreally is, because it's in improv it's
comedy, but it's artistic and itcan be beautiful and sad and wonderful and
you know, interactive and you neverbut it's never planned. You know,
like you you could plea playing thesame song night after night and it's going
to be delivered in a different wayevery single night. Absolutely right, Yeah,
(26:22):
you have keen observation skills. That'sexactly the case. And it's uh,
well yeah, because I would seeyou guys night after you know,
jelly rolls. You know, it'show many piano songs because you want the
songs to be familiar, but atthe same time, you you you get
bored with you you have to makeit fun, right, But the show
(26:45):
that the thing, the thing is, it's every night is different because the
audience is different every night. Youknow, there's no two audiences the same
and they may seem similar, butthere's slight differences, but usually they're drastically
different. So it's a dialogue ratherthan a monologue. Monol lot would just
be you come up with a setlist and you know, talk, you
do your thing and they receive itand they like it hopefully. But this
(27:06):
is a dialogue, so they giveyou request. It's all requests you pull.
You know, if you pull offa request, off the off the
piano, and you may play partof it, and you know, and
then you may your partner may beplaying something different, and then your interaction
and you you know, how manydifferent players do you usually form? Usually
four? Yeah, switch off anhour an hour and do one song together,
you know, like Bohemian Rhapsody,or we used to do a dance
(27:30):
to the music and uh beach boys, I get around and yeah, it's
all right, have a good timeto do a little like oh and also
the other Billy Joel one. Itsounds like an old fifties song, The
Longest Time that one. So wewould do like four part stuff like that,
four part harmonies. But your repertoire, it's gotta be hundreds of songs
(27:52):
because you know, if you bringfour people in, they're going to have
different taste and songs and you know, like different requests and somebody may know
something. So how does that allwork? Well, you know, everybody
brings their own thing to the table. So I know complete catalogs of different
artists almost. I mean, Ihave always put the challenge out that I
(28:15):
can play any Beatles song except forthe George Harris and Indian stuff within with
But I can, you know,because I'm just such a fan, and
I know most of the classic Imean, I think I don't know how
many. I don't even don't evenknow how many songs I actually know.
Because I can, I can gooff on a different artist and do like
all of Simon and Garfunkel. Ican do a bunch of Frank Sinach or
Dean Martin. I can do theKinks, the Who, the Stones,
(28:37):
of course, the Beatles, Billy, Joel and John. So those are
artists that are really near and dearto my heart to this day. And
if somebody says I like this artistNeil Young, say I can do a
bunch of his songs, you know, And it's just because you love it
though, you know, and sometimesyou need the lyrics. Now then the
oldest when don't have the tablets orthe computers to get words, so that's
(28:59):
sometimes you make it up because youcan't remember it. The music's all crammed
in my head. Very busy,Yeah, but it always makes you know
if you're making different words up,and you guys would make different lyrics after
you played piano man a million times, the words kind of change. Get
a little dirty everyway, get alittle dirty. All the songs get a
little dirty, you know. Withthree w wes we play Christmas music.
(29:23):
I played. You know, I'veplayed more Christmas music than anybody I remember,
And well, you know, aftera while you start making up the
lyrics and not all of them areclean. And I remember this little intern
over there. I just felt likesomebody was looking at me. I looked
over at the door, and sheheard my dirty Christmas, you know,
Santa lyrics, and she's like,I just wanted to say, I like
(29:45):
the Christmas music. Apparently you don't, so so I can basically I can
relate. Once you hear a songover and over and over. How many
times have you played piano man,I think I know a thousand songs.
I'm going to say that, Ireally I think I do. If I
(30:06):
it's just like all of Elvis,you know right there, and all the
Beatles. I mean, I'm probablyoverestimating that figure, but you know,
if if put to the task,I could come up with the goods on
most of you know, Okay,give it the songs that you grew up
to. You grew up with earlyseventh okay, and just give me like
(30:26):
Beatles, and you talked about theStones and the Who and Billy Joel and
Nelton John and things like that,right, right, Did you get a
greater appreciation as becoming a musician fordifferent art forms? You mentioned Frank Sinatra,
right, and Dean Martin, AndI've done the same thing. I
listened to back in some of thosevocally stylings, and I'm like, wow,
(30:48):
they you know, because I alsoI DJ a lot of weddings,
and you're seeing a lot of twentyyear olds requesting Frank Sinatra and things like
that, and I'm so proud ofthem. Like, yeah, you appreciate
some really good music. Do youhave anything like that that you maybe didn't
appreciate as a kid, But youmentioned Billie Holiday, Yeah, do you
(31:10):
have any other examples like that?Well, I mean definitely Frank Sinatra,
like all the way I've been playingthat recently, when Somebody Loves You It's
No Good from The Jokers Wild filmThe Joey Lewis story. That's a great
one. Yeah, all of itreally, because there's a song by Paul
McCartney called Backwards Traveler, and I'msort of like a backwards traveler musically because
(31:33):
I'm always going back to see Like, for example, I got into Elvis
around the time, right before theStray Cats hit with this rockabilly thing,
and it was like, I know, the Beatles all said Elvis was the
king, and without Elvis there won'tbe any Beatles. So I decided to
listen to what they meant, whatthey were talking about, and I realized,
my god, this guy's fantastic.The early Sun Studios of Memphis before
(31:57):
you signed to RCA, before heartbreakUp, all that stuff with the heavy
echo, Scotty Moore and lead guitar, you know, Bill Black on bass,
stand up bass, not even drumson it, because the echo is
the plucking of the bass strings onthe first Like, that's all right,
mama, there's no drums on that. This rock and roll though, how
does that work? Well, therewere no drums on early country music,
(32:17):
though they would have. Getn't permittedit, right, So but that's so.
And then from there I got intolike all that you know Johnny Cash.
Uh. I'm trying to think ofthe other guy's Carl Perkins, Roy
Orbison. You know, I discoveredthe artist from the fifties because I was
they were before my time, andthen I go to the forties. You
know, I used to watch DeanMartin Jerry Lewis movies and I always love
(32:42):
that some more so I still playthat one. That's a great Yeah,
great, we took my son.I'm sorry, no, no, we
took I have a silly joke Ialways introduced with that. So Maury with
I say in nineteen ninety six thatthat Dean Martin from Stubenville, Ohio,
who had his first uh national holiday, like a celebration of you know,
his life. So I took mywife and I took our son, Alexander.
(33:06):
He was three. And the nextday my mom, his grandma,
said where did mommy daddy take yesterday? And he said, mommy daddy took
me, the stupid villain. I'mgoing to steal that from Please take it
yours, all right. So whenit comes to piano players, that kind
(33:28):
of okay, give me your topten. Okay, well, I'll definitely
put Billy Joel. Yeah, yeah, Angry young Man, rupier rag amazing
instrumentals, you know, the preludeto Angry young Man. You know what
I'm talking about. Do you write? Do you write music similar to Billy
because he writes all the music first. Then the worst I do is that?
(33:51):
Is that kind of the way youdo it? Yeah? Is that
hard? Is that? Because?Well? Sure, I mean it's hard
to make inspiration come. Uh.You tend to write more when you're younger
because you don't know any better.You know, nobody's telling you, oh,
even yourself. You're not putting,you're not judging what you're writing so
much. It's just like accepting it. So uh. And some of the
(34:14):
lyrics come instantly with the melody,say, like the chorus or a good
hook will come with the melody atthe same time. And I used to
put a little cassette recorder on andjust wing it and then come back and
listen to it and take little snaggetsout of there and go, oh I
like that part and write a songbased on this section. I'm just improving,
you know, improvising, So butyeah, I do. Uh.
(34:37):
I usually write the music first,but you're just like you just noodle around,
keep doing it over and over untilit starts to formulate itself and it's
it's incredible. It's incredible. Youwere saying about piano players, though,
Errol Garner from Pittsburgh is the mostamazing guy I've ever seen. You can
watch these old, uh YouTube clipsof him playing, and he did this
(35:00):
thing where he could play classical andpop music and he would do from you
know, Beethoven into a ragtime ona in a twinkling of an eye.
I was like, this guy wasjust so musical. And he wrote the
music for mysty right, that guy. And he's from East Liberty, so
like. And Henry Mansini is anotherhe's from Aliquippa. What a great artist
(35:22):
he is. He wrote Moon Riveroriginally called Mont River. Hank, I
don't know. I always say thatit's dirty. He's still doing your stick.
I can't start it all. Butand then so I worked at Jelly
(35:43):
Rolls. Then I worked at WaterfrontSing Sing, and then I worked at
Charlie Murdox all on age thirty sevenon the mont River. So I felt
like I'm working my way up theriver. Eventually I'll be in Mononga Head.
He's down in the valley. Sohow often do you do you still
write music and how do you play? Do you play every day? I
do? Yeah, I play guitartoo, so I also play guitar.
(36:07):
So my brother sure, oh yeah, that's easy. But if you can
play guitar, you can figure.No no, no, no, I
don't mean it's easy to be reallygood. Stanley Clark and John entswist.
So McCartney's are pretty a sting.This guy sing and play at the same
time. That's amazing. So no, I my brother was a big influence
(36:30):
on me because we went from baseballto music. We sed to sit around
playing all the Beatles and Jesus Christ, Superstar, god Spell, this is
early seventies and all the motown Imean all the seventies are as you can
imagine. I scept the greatest hitsof the seventies, and those were all
stuck in my head forever. Buthe played acoustic guitar and I played piano,
(36:50):
and then one day he had troublewith the rhythm. So I said
it was like this, and Istarted playing his guitar. I was fourteen,
and so I played guitar a lot. So when I was in bands,
I was playing guitar. Also,uh with Bill Thoms in the Shades
that was I was the lead guitaristin that band. And so then I
didn't play piano until the dueling pianothing. Really does I mean I played
(37:12):
in high school, but I wasalways playing guitar, you know, so
they go together, they really do. You learn on piano how to play
chords, you know, chord booksE minor GC. If you play piano
like a guitar player plays chords,you can play any song in the world.
So that's one of the things Iteach kids, Like Okay, Heart
and Soul was the first thing Ilearned. Boom see a minor D minor
(37:37):
G. That's called a turnaround.You can play like five hundred songs with
those chords, like all the fiftiesdo wop stuff, you know. So
that's chords right there. You don'teven realize you're playing chords. Just the
bass, the rhythm partner in themelody, ding ding ding d d D.
That's that's not what I'm talking about. I'm just me the chords,
like the back end when it comesto music. You're talking about, you
(37:59):
know, knowing a thousand songs,just that those little chords can play five
hundred songs right exactly, But whenit comes to production of newer music,
you lose that simplicity. It seemslike, you know, you would think
that anybody could have a studio nowthat as long as you have pro tools,
that's a studio. Right, gota room and a computer, it's
(38:21):
a studio. You would think youwould have a more interesting palette because you
could play anything, and you know, you have a million different tracks,
And it seems to me that musichas it's become less musical. Yes,
I agree on hundred percent. Well, it's funny when you only have a
(38:43):
few options, say you only havefour tracks to deal with, like Sergeant
Pepper was done on four tracks.Incredible, right, I mean it sounds
like there's like twenty eight tracks atleast, and you get a new keyboard
and has three thousand sound options.You can waste all your time trying to
find well, this is a funsound, noodle, rama, this,
noodle with this. By the timeyou know the time's up, at that
(39:04):
point, you're tired. So it'sbetter if you just have a piano or
an acoustic guitar and keep it simple, you know, really musically, because
when there's too many options. Youget lost in the haze of too many
options. Right, Yeah, there'sa better way to fin Now, we're
going to have, you know,a I coming up with music and you
know, coming up with lyrics andmusic, and I think, you know
(39:28):
what, I think it's it's goingto be a lost lost art. I
hope not. Yeah, keep ita long. I don't think so.
I think, you know, becauseI think people say, well, you
know, music isn't what it's usedto be. I'm like, no,
no, no, there's musicians,and there's musicians. As long as there's
musicians, there's going to be music. There's going to be a desire to
create. It's just that the wehaven't figured out Spotify at iHeartRadio and all
(39:55):
those kind of different places, YouTubeand there's so many different places we just
haven't figured out that. Eventually,I think it's going to get back to
where it was in the in thein the sixties and seventies. There is
going to be a rebirth some point. I definitely agree with you, and
I look forward to that because westill have that need. You know,
(40:17):
the demand is there, so wehave to make the supply to make it
happen. But the demand for humanmusic and non robotic music, but actual
people change. But even robotic music. You have DJs in Miami playing music
that is being recorded off of youknow, that's already been recorded, and
(40:37):
you have fifty thousand people going crazybecause they want that music experience. What
they don't what they what has beenlost is to see somebody create that music
on stage. They're missing out onthat. Once they rediscover that, it's
going to be back. I likehow you think, man, I'm with
(40:59):
that definitely percent. That sounds great. I mean, that's very hopeful,
and I do I agree. Iagree with you. Yeah, that's because
when anytime there's a lot of onething, it makes the demand for something
organic. You know, if it'sif it's just samples of other music and
a DJ just doing that, Imean, yeah, there's that's an art
(41:20):
form and it's great and people canenjoy it. But I think that will
make that happen that they do wantthe live music. They want to see
it from scratch. I play theseretirement homes a lot during the day and
this lady came up to me theother day and said, it's so nice
to see you playing the actually playingthe piano, and I said, well
don't She said no, They allplay the tracks, they played a backing
(41:42):
tracks. They just sing or youknow, just sing in front of these
pre recorder. And even that issomething you know, just from scratch,
you know, home cooking from scratch. It's a taste, it's it's it's
in the sauce, right, justa smidge and of this and that.
So of all the things that youdo, do you like writing music,
composing? Is it? Playing?Is a performing? Live? What?
(42:02):
What? What? Still? Isit? All of it? All of
it? Yeah, I'm honored andthrilled to recreate any of my favorite songs
for people from you know, tenpeople to a thousand, and it's just
it's a thrill just to make music. Like to play a song like Somewhere
over the Rainbows, it gives youchills. You know, what a Wonderful
(42:23):
World? Arm These are songs thatI just love to play. I don't
play them over and over because Ijust think that they have a good message
and they're beautiful and they're fun toimprov on. You can do all sort
of jazzy stuff on those songs,especially what a Wonderful World, which is
funny because a lot of people don'trealize it. But the melody of that
is twink cool, twin cool.You know Series Green or you know the
(42:46):
alphabet song, Blah blah black sleeep. That melody and it's ingreat and they
just those jazz guys would put chordsaround that little symptom. It's just like
stupid villain. I'll never get thatout of my ron. It enlightens the
experience, stupid. Well, that'sgreat. We called it a callback and
(43:13):
yeah, yeah, better all right, So, uh, what's your legacy?
My legacy is I have a bunchof songs. I've made one CD
in ninety nine place called Mine RocketStudios with Josh Roman engineered and recorded it,
and uh, I used a drummer, Matt Frank and mostly just me
going over and over to Newcastle,West Middlesex up there Sharon pa and yeah
(43:37):
that's okay. That's in between boththose those cities, and that's on Spotify,
YouTube and all those things. Ihave eleven songs out there, but
it's from ninety nine and I wasI let the drummer pick the songs.
They were more harder rocking it,sort of something like the Who or Oasis
and Green Day. They were bigat the time. But I have a
bunch of songs that I'm talking to, uh Bill Thoms and Rick Wakowski,
(44:00):
and I'm supposed to go out tohis place and weird and do some recording.
This is like, I want todo these while I still can,
you know. And I have awhole bunch of songs that they're mostly older
songs, some of them. Imean, you write it, you know,
It's like you have a crop froma tree and your brain and it
gives you some really good harvest andyou're lucky if you get you know.
(44:22):
I mean, there's one hit Wonders, they have one. You know.
I have a whole bunch of reallygood ones, and I really know that
I would just want to share them, you know, while I can.
So I don't wanna take them withme in the U haul to the wilot.
Yeah, I don't marry them rightright, No, I don't want
to know. And that's my goalthis year. I told Bill, I
said the deadline. He said,what's your deadline? I said, this
(44:43):
year. So we're going to getit together because everyone's busy in a million
different directions. But that's what Ireally want to do so. Yeah,
I want to throw something out.I think I've told you this wrong again,
my son, Ben Trick. Doyou want me to Intromyeah, Well
that's how I know you. Hetold me one time of something about you.
(45:07):
He thought that as much as anybody. He knows that Ron Soltie plays
music out of sheer love of music, and that's going to be part of
your legacy too. I think howmuch you really really love music and the
joy you get from playing it.Thank you so much, and Ben for
(45:28):
saying it. Yeah, I've honoredto do it. That's a beautiful line.
God knows it. This isn't unvideo and you are bless your heart.
This is the COVID podcast Quit Pittsburgh'smusic scene. Oh welcome in. I'm
(00:20):
your host, Johnny heart Well alongwith Andy Pougard. Today we talked to
the very funny and very talented RonSolstice. I went, I made two
trips in the airport this past threedays and Ford pitt and Squirrel Tunnel Nightmare.
It took me two hours each wayeach way, and there was that
big concert Deading Company. Yeah,it's just ridiculous. And I think of
(00:43):
my friend Sean Black and he's acomedian and he had a T shirt Mane
years and thirty years ago. Itwas an acronym for Pittsburgh. It was
people in the tunnels. You reallyget hurt. You know the big haze
that's that's over the city. Youknow what that's Dead and Company, my
(01:04):
friend. Okay, that's how westart every show. I heard I've listening
to Benny and the Jets silobates.Ron. How are you, sir?
I'm great, Johnny. It's pleasureto be here. You know, we
worked together at Jelly Rolls Value.You are getting new I didn't know that
(01:26):
yeah, so, uh yeah,it's this it was. I wasn't like
a full I would just go thereperiodically, back at my b ninety four
days, which is ages and nights. Yeah yeah, Oh my goodness,
gracious I forgot you guys. Wonderyou look so familiar? Yeah, well,
(01:47):
you know I've been in you know, Pittsburgh radio since the earth was
cooling. I remember that too,But you're no stranger to Pittsburgh, So
give us your resume, my resume. Well, I uh well, jelly
Rolls started in ninety one, butI was a graduate of Central Catholic nineteen
eighty and I started playing in bandsat the Raspberry Rhino and Shady Side on
Walnut Street. Now it's a bananarepublic. What are you gonna do?
(02:12):
That goes on that show biz?You know, it seems like every time
we have an interview, somebody talksabout the clubs. And then the decade
was the other one. Yeah,yeah, the first ever heard of that?
What is that decade? You sillyman, you rascal. Yeah,
the place was uh okay, thefirst well, the Raspberry Rhino was our
(02:36):
They used to let us play.Well, we made peanuts, literally peanut
a bag of penis is how theypaid us. But we loved it because
it was a I was underage,you know, in the bar, working
and it was fantastic. Yeah.How old were you? I was eighteen
nineteen twenty then twenty one. Theysaid you're too old. Yeah, we
can't afford more than two bags ofone bag, that's it, you only
(02:58):
get one. So the first bandof it was called Blind River, and
that was a high school band andwas named after the Neil Young song Long
May You Run? Was it blackingBlind River nineteen sixty two? Sounds like
the Church Lady? And then theRacket. The Racket was the second band
I was in, playing all theselittle local bars, maybe like twenty bucks
a man, something like that.First gig do you remember your first game
(03:21):
gig was playing in Central Catholic Auditorium? Well, yeah, the first gig
was at the Holiday House in Monrovia. We called ourselves One Night's Stand and
it was for the Swiss vol Datedance for the Valentine's Formal prom and they
all they it was nineteen seventy eight. Everybody wanted disco, they wanted Saturday
(03:42):
Night fever and we were playing theStones, the Who the Kings and the
Beatles show, and new way wedid the cars was brand new. We
did just what I needed and theydidn't like us. But we learned that
our theme song that we learned,we played it five times was we got
to Bob Zieger. You played inmost yes, for real, for real
(04:02):
because they, you know, thetough jocks, they just wanted to slow
dance. They don't want to,they don't want to got there and boogie
woogie. You know, they didn'tthey don't want to shake their tail feathers
out, you know, in frontof their you know. It was a
very macho, bravado kind of schoolSwiss fel. You remember Integrat you we
probably made fifty bucks a man.Oh yeah, not too bad for high
(04:27):
school kids. Yeah. The seventies, I know, I know. Salrochetty
was our drummer. If you knowthis guy, I don't know, you
know, Big Day Entertainment. Yeah, he's an eight booking agent. Now,
oh okay, nice guy. Yeah, it was great. We caught
himself one night stand, terrible name, So that's how many times we played
one night. But that was good. So I got to say that I
played at the Holiday House. Rantsof course that wasn't the main room.
(04:48):
It was up the like the receptionroom for the for the corporate events wherever
they's a sponsor up there. Butit was. But let's go even further
back. When did you disc ever? Did you come from a family of
musicians? No, no, itskips a generation or seven. Really,
I'll tell you exactly when I started. The first music I really got into
(05:09):
and learned and absorbed was mister Rogers. I was a sick kid. I
had asthma. They was undiagnosed,So I remember laying in bed with pneumonia.
I was four or fives, andit just happened that Queed just started
airing this new show mister Rogers neighbor, so you know, and he looked
like he was talking to me becausehe looked into the camera, because as
he said in the movie, hejust looked at one little bukaroo out there
(05:31):
in the audience, and and Iwas one of his buckaroos. It was.
I loved the guy, and hewas so calming. Later on with
my kids as well, but uh, I had like five of his albums,
And what a great message. Youknow, you are special just the
way you are. Who can beatthat message? And the music that was
in the in the in the showis amazing. It is amazing, and
(05:55):
it influenced you. It certainly did. Yeah, and he wrote all those
songs. He was amazing and hedoesn't get credit as a songwriter, but
the guy was really I not onlyshould he be canonized as a saint,
but he was a great songwriter.I remember the words. So there's a
great song he wrote, tree treeTree Tree Tree Tree Tree Tree Tree,
treat tree Tree. I'm just I'mjoking about the lyrics. And you know,
(06:16):
but you are special in the daytime, in the nighttime, anytime that
you feel the right for a friendshipwith me. See spe cee a a
friend that was spelled friend there.But anyway, yeah, I love that
guy. And I watched him forabout three years straight and listened to the
song sang along and that's my momsaid, oh he sings. Well,
you know, so they bought mea piano from that you know, it's
(06:41):
like seven and it was a Colderand Campbell sponsored by Fred Rogers from Joseph
Horns. Yeah for real, Yeah, this is crazy. So h yeah.
So that's really and then from there, you know, all our generation
we all wanted to be in theArchies and the Partridges for me the Monkeys,
so uh, that was I rememberI was seven and arguing with my
(07:01):
dad about the Archie's. We hadlike an existential metaphysical debate, and he's
like, that's a cartoon. That'snot a real. Guy's like, no,
what do you mean? Listen tohim, sugar, dun, dunt.
That's listened to his voice. Howcan you say he's not real anyway?
All right, So other than theArchies and Boy and mister Rodgert,
Beatles, the Beatles, I canclearly call. One day, listen to
(07:25):
the radio, and I heard Yesterday, and then I heard My Love by
Paul McCartney and Wings Thanks around seventytwo. Seventy yeah, it must have
been seventy two, And I said, that sounds like the same singer.
So I put it together and Ilearned every Beatles song. I was a
paper boy the Pittsburgh Press, andI always had a few dollars in my
(07:46):
pocket, so I used to buya record. At least my brother and
I we'd buy records every week,a forty five or an album. And
I still have them all. Youhave thousands of them. And I listened
to them so closely and Entian overand over and over. I just had
to learn how to play uh heyJude, and let It Be and Saturday
in the Park by Chicago, thisthose little piano things, you know,
(08:07):
I just I needed to recreate thatbecause it was magical to me. It
still is. Actually, so manyartists were influenced by the Beatles, but
they're really not known as for theirpiano music. And it's really I mean,
Paul McCartney is really an underrated pianoplayer. Yes, yes he is.
He's a left handed piano player.So if you listen to Lady Madonna
(08:30):
this, the right hand just goesholds to Courts Doom, Dune Dune because
he's a lefty. And then ofcourse Billy Preston too is you know,
like talk about he was my Thatwas the first album I ever bought me
and the kids was was a ILove Billy Press fantastic. Yeah. So
the Beatles in the the you know, the seventies. You grew up in
(08:52):
the early seventies, right, soAlton John was a huge He was our
elvis at the time. And thenI think he's amazing, you know if
in my opinion, maybe the greatestentertainer ever. A lot of people,
you know, talk about Elvis andthings like that, but do you think
about it. You know, helanded in like nineteen seventies, owned the
(09:13):
seventies, uh, you know,had a severe drug problem, and then
came back in the eighties, andthen came back in the nineties and he's
still putting out records and he's stillperforming. His Goodbye Tour has been going
on for forty years. Yeah,so hello, I must be going.
I cannot say I came to sayI must be going. You know that's
(09:35):
grouchy Lyrics just killed that quote.I went on my tombstone one treat treat
tree. I love you, Freddy. All right, So how about you?
What in your opinion? Yes,when it comes to uh, you
know, piano players, who youknow? Who do you uh? Oh
my gosh, oh you put meon the spot. My gosh, my
(09:58):
gosh. What Elton John like him? I probably favor more of the older
piano players Little Richard, Yeah,yeah, Jerry l Lewis, Yeah,
yeah, how about you? Howabout you? Well, I'm big Billy
Joel fan. I mean the differencebetween Billy Joe and Alton John is oh
(10:22):
that Billy writes his own lyrics andmusic, and Elton John magically can take
a piece of me. Oh youdidn't, Bernie, Yeah, isn't that
amazing? So he just gets thesheet of music with all those classic songs
he's written and just composes a melodyaround this poem. You know, every
classic song from Elton John was writtenthat way, and it blows my mind.
(10:43):
I saw him do something on atalk show once where he took like
a phone book and was just makingup music to it, you know,
reading like a manual for you know, carburetor or something. He was just
making up a beautiful melody because that'shis He's got this amazing, uncanny gift
to do to make music and foranything. But they both do the candid
but Bernie comes off with some amazinglyrics and then I've seen different interviews and
(11:09):
documentaries on Elton how he kind oftakes Bernie's words and then just almost has
that in that melody in his headinstantaneously. Incredible, isn't it. I
don't know how to do it,honestly. I see people playing the piano.
The fact that there's people that doI wouldn't even know where to begin
(11:31):
because you're using two hands and you'replaying two different things. I don't know.
I don't know. Well, youknow it's middle C start. But
you know it's like baseball, becauseI always tell beginners it's like you play
music, you play baseball, andin baseball you throw with one hand and
catch with the other. So,uh, it's if you keep it simple,
and something can scare you away andcomplicate and say, oh, you've
(11:54):
got to play all the classical youknow, the great classics. He can
play by year two. It's justone way to do it. There's any
way you get to it is fine, you know, if you have to
read sheet music and play that way. And a lot of people say them
the same thing about left and righthand. But basically, the left hand
is playing the bass, the righthand is playing the chords the rhythm,
(12:15):
and you're singing the lead. SoI learned to play to sing. So
that's I'm doing a chord with myright hand, a bass note with my
left hand. I'm singing the melody. So it's like a one man trio
in a way. Underpaid though,I got So did you take did you
take lessons? I did? Itook lessons from for about five years.
(12:35):
Uh Sarah Owens on Bradock Avenue,swiss Well. And she was a sweet
older woman and when I walked intoher house it was like the world turned
to black and white from color outside. Yeah, even way beyond that,
we're like Sarah Bernhardt. But shewas a sweet lady, and I said,
I want to play the song.I brought her a sheet music for
(12:56):
lean On Me by Bill Withers,and she said, we don't play songs
like that here, we play youknow what I'm telling you to play.
So that's what kind of divided there. But for five years it took lessons
from merch. So I definitely learnedthe basics. But when you're in bands,
you just play. You know,what key are you and what's the
core changes. That's how you playreally in pop bands and rock and roll
bands, you know all that kindof stuff. Now if you're playing jazz,
(13:18):
it's just a complicated version of that. You know, it's just like
there's what key G minor, okay, and so you know how to riff,
and you learned the vocabulary and allthe different keys. You know.
That's it's it's really if you keepit simple it's really not so complicated.
You know, you complicated as youget older and you try to you try
to change it up and make itmore you you know, make it about
(13:39):
like well, I think it's soyou're experimenting all the time. And uh,
you know that line from Bob Dylansong he not busy being born is
busy dying? What's like that musically? And I think, you know,
comedically probably too for comics. Youknow they if they stop they just get
an act and they stick with it. It gets stale. You've got to
keep learning new stuff. And that'swhat keeps me going. I'm always learning
(14:01):
something new. I go backwards though. I listened like I'm learning Billie Holiday
good Morning Heartache today because that's sucha beautiful song, you know, And
I'm always learned. I just learnedstuff that I love, you know,
the Beatles. All you need islove. That's really the key to it.
If you love what you do,you're you're a wealthy man. That's
my philosophy. Do you remember thefirst song you ever wrote? Yeah,
(14:24):
it was called Elizabeth, and itwas my dad's mom had just passed away.
I was seven, and it wentto Elizabeth, where have you gone
when you were seven? Yeah,wow, because I didn't understand, like
where'd she go? You know?And she died? It blewed my mind.
It's pretty deep for a seven yearold. I was a deep kid.
(14:46):
What happened? I went to school, all right? So you went
through lessons and then you wrote yourfirst song? Right when did you first?
Do you remember the first band youever formed and who was in it
and where did you form? Iwas in high school and it was called
(15:09):
Blind River. I was mentioning thatand they did like a lot of Neil
Young songs. Then they did Yes, they did pure Prairie League game.
He was brand new at the time. And then we did a sentimental lady
Bob Welsh and Fleetwood Max song.If you remember that one, it's the
dance song of the night. ButI played a Univox keyboard. They didn't
have many electric keyboards at the time. One was called Offender Rhoads and it's
(15:33):
the real bellsy song that you hearon just the way you are Billy Joel's
song. And so you either hadto play this huge piano called a CP
seventy Yamaha, which was it tooktwo guys to carry, and so a
real piano that had electronic mics init, so and all that you see
in the seventies, they all usedthem. In the early eighties too,
they were still using this road warriorof a piano. So nowadays you can
(15:56):
you know, it's so light youcan move them anywhere. Those days,
I played this unifox. I thinkit had forty four keys and had three
sound settings. It had piano,electric piano, and harpsichord, because we
all know harpsichord is an oft usedsound these days, and I always thought
it was funny. Never used theharpsichord unless you played Martha my dear right
(16:18):
right right, or or the mounstersor might right, oh that's even better.
Yeah. But I played Hey Jude, and I played your song by
Elton John and it was the firsttime I played in front of my friends
ever, and it was terrified,you know, because music at the time,
you know, Central Catholic is allabout athletics. And Danny Marino was
(16:41):
a year younger than older than me, and he was there. I remember
that, and he's like, hegave me the thumbs up. It's cool,
sulted, like thanks Dan, hestills me five bucks. But I'm
not gonna you know, that wasa big deal because my friends all loved
it, and I thought they wouldlike make fun of me. You know,
honestly, first time you play infront of your your jock friends,
(17:04):
it's a bit terrifying. You know, you think that is, you know,
call your names and stuff like that. But it was just see,
I was just the opposite. Iwas a jock who had friends who played
music, and I always envied theirtheir ability to comprehend music. To me,
it's almost like a different language.So when I smart, but you
(17:26):
know, it was but it waslike, you know, like I said,
if what musicians are able to dois is an anathema to me,
I just I just don't. Idon't get it. But but I appreciate
the fact that that's the key.You appreciate the love that you hear.
You know, when you get goodcooking from your mom and you can taste
(17:47):
the love in it, you canhear it in the music too, the
same way. Outside I always makeanalogies like that and Danny Marino, by
the way, I was a jocktoo. I was. My first hero
is ROBERTA. Clementy, and mysecond was John Lennon. So I lost
both of them, and so uhDanny Moore. I wanted to be a
pirate in the worst way, andthat's exactly I was, in the worst
way. But uh, I reallywe all did. It was we played
eight hours a day and from thatI went to music eight hours a day.
(18:11):
Because when freshman year at high school, I tried off for the freshman
team at Central Catholic baseball team,that is because I loved baseball and I
still do. And Marina was onthe mound and your order, and I
didn't know who he was. Hehad the curly frow and he's like,
have you hit this kid? Youcan make the team. So he thought
three striketure. I didn't see theball until and I said, where's the
(18:32):
piano. That's when I could baseball. So I can honestly say that he
quit. He ended my baseball careerinstantly. See, I wanted to be
a pirate too. I wanted toraid ships and then and steal all No,
I was like, you know,harder, all right, So all
right, now we're up to speed. We're up in high school. Now.
(18:52):
Once you graduate, then where doesgo to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh
to be a musician choice, butI was. I could always do faces
and portraits and I was a prettygood drawer. Basically, yeah, yeah,
should that's right. We had afew options with the fact, Yeah,
Sonny Pugar memorial a couple of times, Yeah, Jimmy Hendricks one with
(19:17):
guitar picks to it. Anyway,So from there I would bring my acoustic
guitar to the hallways that was onPenn Avenue in Pittsburgh, and uh,
I started playing in the in thebreaks, and it became that was like
my identity was still there because everybodytried to talk you out of music.
They say, oh, you can't. You know, you can't really earn
a living musically in Pittsburgh. Butso I I got into music really heavily
(19:44):
and uh, but then I tooka day job. In eighty four.
I was in a band called TheShades with Bill Toms for a couple of
years and Jaffo on drums, MickNewmire, Joe Pleski on keyboard. Great
band. And the biggest regret inmy life was quitting this band in nineteen
eighty four and take in a normaljob with my dad. It's this insurance
company just so I could get married, and you know, it was a
(20:04):
whole. It was like a triplebomb. Down the rabbit hole, down
the sinkhole. For so. Youknow, there's a song by David Bowie
Beware of this song ding Rule ofnineteen eighty four, and I hear that,
I think, yeah, I shouldhave listened to that song because I
made I quit a band I loved. We're doing originals and you know,
(20:25):
the Clarks opened up for us atthe Metropole. Was that what it was
called? The place? Yeah?And no, no, no, the
place on Bomb Boulevard. I can'tthink of the name of right now.
Graffiti. Yeah, yeah, wewere anyway. So I went back to
music full time in nineteen ninety andI said, I'm gonna try this one
(20:45):
more time. For six years.Six years you sold insurance with your father,
Yeah, basically collected money and McKeesport. It was like it was
like a glorified paper boy, andI cashed into their policies. They I
don't have any money, so well, you know, you have equity built
up. So I was doing whatthe company didn't want me to do,
which was, you know it's along time ago, but wait, so
(21:06):
go ahead, No, I wasgoing to say, during that six years,
did you really miss me? Idid. What I did was to
cover that need in my life musically. I bought a four track cassette player
from a swiss Field music store whichis no longer there also, and there's
a cassette player, but you couldlearn how to overdub and make demos with
this thing. I had a drummachine and keyboards, guitar, bass,
(21:27):
and I love doing harmon. He'strying to be like Brian Wilson, the
Beach Boys type stuff, you know, And so I did that. I
played with Al's title for All theCrackers guitar player off and on, but
it mostly didn't play any music.Why I did that? And I said,
I'm gonna get it one more shot. And I haven't looked back yet
in since now. You haven't doneanything else but music after that? Right?
(21:48):
Music, that's right? And peopleask you sometimes what's your real job,
what's your day job? You know, which we all hate that question
if we do it full time.So there's a Monty Python line, which
is, you know, I'm atqualifoid bregncis and only do this because of
luck beating my own boss. SoI'm very lucky and very blessed and grateful.
(22:12):
All right, So getting back intomusic in the early nineteen nineties,
pick us up there. Okay,So I got a job at sand Castle.
So the first time dueling pianos wasin Pittsburgh was at sand Castle water
Park. So that was from Aprilto September that summer. Salvin Toward,
(22:33):
Jimmy Sapiens, and myself Steve Cook. The four of us played four nights
a week Wednesday through Saturday. EightI forget the time, eight to twelve
probably, and I was loving it. It was so I actually had landed
a full time job playing piano andsinging, which I was like, I
couldn't believe I was doing it.So from there I went to Jelly Rolls.
They just opened up, and soI was on the first staff there
(22:56):
with Pete Moran, Mike Williams,Whiz and uh. We played there a
long time and no drum kit,no guitars, no bass, just two
pianos. And you know, microguys killed you guys were absolutely you know,
phenomenal musicianship. But you know,because you played with different guys,
you know every time, you know, because you traded out, you couldn't
(23:18):
just play four hours a night,you know, you had that you needed
the break. But at that pointit was six hours and six hours eighty
two that Jelly Rolls. It waseighty two, five nights a week.
And then they stopped having Sundays becauseSunday is in a good time for Pittsburgh.
Everybody's looking at the game, right, right, whatever it was right,
So, uh, the I metmy wife there. She just so
my first job was tied in witha bad marriage and no kids, and
(23:41):
it was just, you know,we both agreed, this isn't working.
So it was like I had asecond rebirth, our first rebirth, but
a second life with Jelly Rolls iswhere it really starts. Because I meet
Jen and we've been together since ninetytwo. We have three kids, and
you know, she's my second wifeand we're real happy. And she's artistic
(24:03):
as well. She's yeah, she'sthe backstage person. She does. Uh
she works at CMU, the wardrobesupervisor and president of the local theater Union.
So she's real involved in the backstagestuff. You know, she's seamstress.
Uh, she's worked all the exactlyexactly a little tiny dancer. How
(24:26):
did you two meet. Oh ohyeah, Well, my son Ben was
the drummer at Murdochs, and Ithought I'd go down and see him Charlie
Murdo's Dueling Piano show, which Ronwas involved with for about ten years or
more, six to sixteen. Yeah, And so I went to Charlie Murdocks
(24:48):
to see Ben play, and Iwent with my bff and Kathy, and
we sat there and enjoyed the showtremendously. And of course after that I
went down a lot. But afterthe show is over, I went over
Kathy I think recognized you, andit turned out that my friend's brother and
(25:11):
Ron's brother were really good friends growingup together. And to me, it
just illustrates that how Pittsburgh everybody knowsevery ride you and that's a small world.
And then after that we just becamegood friends, You and I.
Yeah, and Kathy remembered you sojoyce y' well that's what made yeah.
(25:36):
Sure I played baseball. You playedbaseball with him, right right, right?
So so you were really the firstone I met out of that Charlie
Murders group, except for Ben,who was you know, I met him,
I met you. Can I introduceyou to Ben? You knew him.
When it comes into dueling pianos,it's it's almost and it's it's a
(26:02):
different kind of art form. Itreally is, because it's in improv it's
comedy, but it's artistic and itcan be beautiful and sad and wonderful and
you know, interactive and you neverbut it's never planned. You know,
like you you could plea playing thesame song night after night and it's going
to be delivered in a different wayevery single night. Absolutely right, Yeah,
(26:22):
you have keen observation skills. That'sexactly the case. And it's uh,
well yeah, because I would seeyou guys night after you know,
jelly rolls. You know, it'show many piano songs because you want the
songs to be familiar, but atthe same time, you you you get
bored with you you have to makeit fun, right, But the show
(26:45):
that the thing, the thing is, it's every night is different because the
audience is different every night. Youknow, there's no two audiences the same
and they may seem similar, butthere's slight differences, but usually they're drastically
different. So it's a dialogue ratherthan a monologue. Monol lot would just
be you come up with a setlist and you know, talk, you
do your thing and they receive itand they like it hopefully. But this
(27:06):
is a dialogue, so they giveyou request. It's all requests you pull.
You know, if you pull offa request, off the off the
piano, and you may play partof it, and you know, and
then you may your partner may beplaying something different, and then your interaction
and you you know, how manydifferent players do you usually form? Usually
four? Yeah, switch off anhour an hour and do one song together,
you know, like Bohemian Rhapsody,or we used to do a dance
(27:30):
to the music and uh beach boys, I get around and yeah, it's
all right, have a good timeto do a little like oh and also
the other Billy Joel one. Itsounds like an old fifties song, The
Longest Time that one. So wewould do like four part stuff like that,
four part harmonies. But your repertoire, it's gotta be hundreds of songs
(27:52):
because you know, if you bringfour people in, they're going to have
different taste and songs and you know, like different requests and somebody may know
something. So how does that allwork? Well, you know, everybody
brings their own thing to the table. So I know complete catalogs of different
artists almost. I mean, Ihave always put the challenge out that I
(28:15):
can play any Beatles song except forthe George Harris and Indian stuff within with
But I can, you know,because I'm just such a fan, and
I know most of the classic Imean, I think I don't know how
many. I don't even don't evenknow how many songs I actually know.
Because I can, I can gooff on a different artist and do like
all of Simon and Garfunkel. Ican do a bunch of Frank Sinach or
Dean Martin. I can do theKinks, the Who, the Stones,
(28:37):
of course, the Beatles, Billy, Joel and John. So those are
artists that are really near and dearto my heart to this day. And
if somebody says I like this artistNeil Young, say I can do a
bunch of his songs, you know, And it's just because you love it
though, you know, and sometimesyou need the lyrics. Now then the
oldest when don't have the tablets orthe computers to get words, so that's
(28:59):
sometimes you make it up because youcan't remember it. The music's all crammed
in my head. Very busy,Yeah, but it always makes you know
if you're making different words up,and you guys would make different lyrics after
you played piano man a million times, the words kind of change. Get
a little dirty everyway, get alittle dirty. All the songs get a
little dirty, you know. Withthree w wes we play Christmas music.
(29:23):
I played. You know, I'veplayed more Christmas music than anybody I remember,
And well, you know, aftera while you start making up the
lyrics and not all of them areclean. And I remember this little intern
over there. I just felt likesomebody was looking at me. I looked
over at the door, and sheheard my dirty Christmas, you know,
Santa lyrics, and she's like,I just wanted to say, I like
(29:45):
the Christmas music. Apparently you don't, so so I can basically I can
relate. Once you hear a songover and over and over. How many
times have you played piano man,I think I know a thousand songs.
I'm going to say that, Ireally I think I do. If I
(30:06):
it's just like all of Elvis,you know right there, and all the
Beatles. I mean, I'm probablyoverestimating that figure, but you know,
if if put to the task,I could come up with the goods on
most of you know, Okay,give it the songs that you grew up
to. You grew up with earlyseventh okay, and just give me like
(30:26):
Beatles, and you talked about theStones and the Who and Billy Joel and
Nelton John and things like that,right, right, Did you get a
greater appreciation as becoming a musician fordifferent art forms? You mentioned Frank Sinatra,
right, and Dean Martin, AndI've done the same thing. I
listened to back in some of thosevocally stylings, and I'm like, wow,
(30:48):
they you know, because I alsoI DJ a lot of weddings,
and you're seeing a lot of twentyyear olds requesting Frank Sinatra and things like
that, and I'm so proud ofthem. Like, yeah, you appreciate
some really good music. Do youhave anything like that that you maybe didn't
appreciate as a kid, But youmentioned Billie Holiday, Yeah, do you
(31:10):
have any other examples like that?Well, I mean definitely Frank Sinatra,
like all the way I've been playingthat recently, when Somebody Loves You It's
No Good from The Jokers Wild filmThe Joey Lewis story. That's a great
one. Yeah, all of itreally, because there's a song by Paul
McCartney called Backwards Traveler, and I'msort of like a backwards traveler musically because
(31:33):
I'm always going back to see Like, for example, I got into Elvis
around the time, right before theStray Cats hit with this rockabilly thing,
and it was like, I know, the Beatles all said Elvis was the
king, and without Elvis there won'tbe any Beatles. So I decided to
listen to what they meant, whatthey were talking about, and I realized,
my god, this guy's fantastic.The early Sun Studios of Memphis before
(31:57):
you signed to RCA, before heartbreakUp, all that stuff with the heavy
echo, Scotty Moore and lead guitar, you know, Bill Black on bass,
stand up bass, not even drumson it, because the echo is
the plucking of the bass strings onthe first Like, that's all right,
mama, there's no drums on that. This rock and roll though, how
does that work? Well, therewere no drums on early country music,
(32:17):
though they would have. Getn't permittedit, right, So but that's so.
And then from there I got intolike all that you know Johnny Cash.
Uh. I'm trying to think ofthe other guy's Carl Perkins, Roy
Orbison. You know, I discoveredthe artist from the fifties because I was
they were before my time, andthen I go to the forties. You
know, I used to watch DeanMartin Jerry Lewis movies and I always love
(32:42):
that some more so I still playthat one. That's a great Yeah,
great, we took my son.I'm sorry, no, no, we
took I have a silly joke Ialways introduced with that. So Maury with
I say in nineteen ninety six thatthat Dean Martin from Stubenville, Ohio,
who had his first uh national holiday, like a celebration of you know,
his life. So I took mywife and I took our son, Alexander.
(33:06):
He was three. And the nextday my mom, his grandma,
said where did mommy daddy take yesterday? And he said, mommy daddy took
me, the stupid villain. I'mgoing to steal that from Please take it
yours, all right. So whenit comes to piano players, that kind
(33:28):
of okay, give me your topten. Okay, well, I'll definitely
put Billy Joel. Yeah, yeah, Angry young Man, rupier rag amazing
instrumentals, you know, the preludeto Angry young Man. You know what
I'm talking about. Do you write? Do you write music similar to Billy
because he writes all the music first. Then the worst I do is that?
(33:51):
Is that kind of the way youdo it? Yeah? Is that
hard? Is that? Because?Well? Sure, I mean it's hard
to make inspiration come. Uh.You tend to write more when you're younger
because you don't know any better.You know, nobody's telling you, oh,
even yourself. You're not putting,you're not judging what you're writing so
much. It's just like accepting it. So uh. And some of the
(34:14):
lyrics come instantly with the melody,say, like the chorus or a good
hook will come with the melody atthe same time. And I used to
put a little cassette recorder on andjust wing it and then come back and
listen to it and take little snaggetsout of there and go, oh I
like that part and write a songbased on this section. I'm just improving,
you know, improvising, So butyeah, I do. Uh.
(34:37):
I usually write the music first,but you're just like you just noodle around,
keep doing it over and over untilit starts to formulate itself and it's
it's incredible. It's incredible. Youwere saying about piano players, though,
Errol Garner from Pittsburgh is the mostamazing guy I've ever seen. You can
watch these old, uh YouTube clipsof him playing, and he did this
(35:00):
thing where he could play classical andpop music and he would do from you
know, Beethoven into a ragtime ona in a twinkling of an eye.
I was like, this guy wasjust so musical. And he wrote the
music for mysty right, that guy. And he's from East Liberty, so
like. And Henry Mansini is anotherhe's from Aliquippa. What a great artist
(35:22):
he is. He wrote Moon Riveroriginally called Mont River. Hank, I
don't know. I always say thatit's dirty. He's still doing your stick.
I can't start it all. Butand then so I worked at Jelly
(35:43):
Rolls. Then I worked at WaterfrontSing Sing, and then I worked at
Charlie Murdox all on age thirty sevenon the mont River. So I felt
like I'm working my way up theriver. Eventually I'll be in Mononga Head.
He's down in the valley. Sohow often do you do you still
write music and how do you play? Do you play every day? I
do? Yeah, I play guitartoo, so I also play guitar.
(36:07):
So my brother sure, oh yeah, that's easy. But if you can
play guitar, you can figure.No no, no, no, I
don't mean it's easy to be reallygood. Stanley Clark and John entswist.
So McCartney's are pretty a sting.This guy sing and play at the same
time. That's amazing. So no, I my brother was a big influence
(36:30):
on me because we went from baseballto music. We sed to sit around
playing all the Beatles and Jesus Christ, Superstar, god Spell, this is
early seventies and all the motown Imean all the seventies are as you can
imagine. I scept the greatest hitsof the seventies, and those were all
stuck in my head forever. Buthe played acoustic guitar and I played piano,
(36:50):
and then one day he had troublewith the rhythm. So I said
it was like this, and Istarted playing his guitar. I was fourteen,
and so I played guitar a lot. So when I was in bands,
I was playing guitar. Also,uh with Bill Thoms in the Shades
that was I was the lead guitaristin that band. And so then I
didn't play piano until the dueling pianothing. Really does I mean I played
(37:12):
in high school, but I wasalways playing guitar, you know, so
they go together, they really do. You learn on piano how to play
chords, you know, chord booksE minor GC. If you play piano
like a guitar player plays chords,you can play any song in the world.
So that's one of the things Iteach kids, Like Okay, Heart
and Soul was the first thing Ilearned. Boom see a minor D minor
(37:37):
G. That's called a turnaround.You can play like five hundred songs with
those chords, like all the fiftiesdo wop stuff, you know. So
that's chords right there. You don'teven realize you're playing chords. Just the
bass, the rhythm partner in themelody, ding ding ding d d D.
That's that's not what I'm talking about. I'm just me the chords,
like the back end when it comesto music. You're talking about, you
(37:59):
know, knowing a thousand songs,just that those little chords can play five
hundred songs right exactly, But whenit comes to production of newer music,
you lose that simplicity. It seemslike, you know, you would think
that anybody could have a studio nowthat as long as you have pro tools,
that's a studio. Right, gota room and a computer, it's
(38:21):
a studio. You would think youwould have a more interesting palette because you
could play anything, and you know, you have a million different tracks,
And it seems to me that musichas it's become less musical. Yes,
I agree on hundred percent. Well, it's funny when you only have a
(38:43):
few options, say you only havefour tracks to deal with, like Sergeant
Pepper was done on four tracks.Incredible, right, I mean it sounds
like there's like twenty eight tracks atleast, and you get a new keyboard
and has three thousand sound options.You can waste all your time trying to
find well, this is a funsound, noodle, rama, this,
noodle with this. By the timeyou know the time's up, at that
(39:04):
point, you're tired. So it'sbetter if you just have a piano or
an acoustic guitar and keep it simple, you know, really musically, because
when there's too many options. Youget lost in the haze of too many
options. Right, Yeah, there'sa better way to fin Now, we're
going to have, you know,a I coming up with music and you
know, coming up with lyrics andmusic, and I think, you know
(39:28):
what, I think it's it's goingto be a lost lost art. I
hope not. Yeah, keep ita long. I don't think so.
I think, you know, becauseI think people say, well, you
know, music isn't what it's usedto be. I'm like, no,
no, no, there's musicians,and there's musicians. As long as there's
musicians, there's going to be music. There's going to be a desire to
create. It's just that the wehaven't figured out Spotify at iHeartRadio and all
(39:55):
those kind of different places, YouTubeand there's so many different places we just
haven't figured out that. Eventually,I think it's going to get back to
where it was in the in thein the sixties and seventies. There is
going to be a rebirth some point. I definitely agree with you, and
I look forward to that because westill have that need. You know,
(40:17):
the demand is there, so wehave to make the supply to make it
happen. But the demand for humanmusic and non robotic music, but actual
people change. But even robotic music. You have DJs in Miami playing music
that is being recorded off of youknow, that's already been recorded, and
(40:37):
you have fifty thousand people going crazybecause they want that music experience. What
they don't what they what has beenlost is to see somebody create that music
on stage. They're missing out onthat. Once they rediscover that, it's
going to be back. I likehow you think, man, I'm with
(40:59):
that definitely percent. That sounds great. I mean, that's very hopeful,
and I do I agree. Iagree with you. Yeah, that's because
when anytime there's a lot of onething, it makes the demand for something
organic. You know, if it'sif it's just samples of other music and
a DJ just doing that, Imean, yeah, there's that's an art
(41:20):
form and it's great and people canenjoy it. But I think that will
make that happen that they do wantthe live music. They want to see
it from scratch. I play theseretirement homes a lot during the day and
this lady came up to me theother day and said, it's so nice
to see you playing the actually playingthe piano, and I said, well
don't She said no, They allplay the tracks, they played a backing
(41:42):
tracks. They just sing or youknow, just sing in front of these
pre recorder. And even that issomething you know, just from scratch,
you know, home cooking from scratch. It's a taste, it's it's it's
in the sauce, right, justa smidge and of this and that.
So of all the things that youdo, do you like writing music,
composing? Is it? Playing?Is a performing? Live? What?
(42:02):
What? What? Still? Isit? All of it? All of
it? Yeah, I'm honored andthrilled to recreate any of my favorite songs
for people from you know, tenpeople to a thousand, and it's just
it's a thrill just to make music. Like to play a song like Somewhere
over the Rainbows, it gives youchills. You know, what a Wonderful
(42:23):
World? Arm These are songs thatI just love to play. I don't
play them over and over because Ijust think that they have a good message
and they're beautiful and they're fun toimprov on. You can do all sort
of jazzy stuff on those songs,especially what a Wonderful World, which is
funny because a lot of people don'trealize it. But the melody of that
is twink cool, twin cool.You know Series Green or you know the
(42:46):
alphabet song, Blah blah black sleeep. That melody and it's ingreat and they
just those jazz guys would put chordsaround that little symptom. It's just like
stupid villain. I'll never get thatout of my ron. It enlightens the
experience, stupid. Well, that'sgreat. We called it a callback and
(43:13):
yeah, yeah, better all right, So, uh, what's your legacy?
My legacy is I have a bunchof songs. I've made one CD
in ninety nine place called Mine RocketStudios with Josh Roman engineered and recorded it,
and uh, I used a drummer, Matt Frank and mostly just me
going over and over to Newcastle,West Middlesex up there Sharon pa and yeah
(43:37):
that's okay. That's in between boththose those cities, and that's on Spotify,
YouTube and all those things. Ihave eleven songs out there, but
it's from ninety nine and I wasI let the drummer pick the songs.
They were more harder rocking it,sort of something like the Who or Oasis
and Green Day. They were bigat the time. But I have a
bunch of songs that I'm talking to, uh Bill Thoms and Rick Wakowski,
(44:00):
and I'm supposed to go out tohis place and weird and do some recording.
This is like, I want todo these while I still can,
you know. And I have awhole bunch of songs that they're mostly older
songs, some of them. Imean, you write it, you know,
It's like you have a crop froma tree and your brain and it
gives you some really good harvest andyou're lucky if you get you know.
(44:22):
I mean, there's one hit Wonders, they have one. You know.
I have a whole bunch of reallygood ones, and I really know that
I would just want to share them, you know, while I can.
So I don't wanna take them withme in the U haul to the wilot.
Yeah, I don't marry them rightright, No, I don't want
to know. And that's my goalthis year. I told Bill, I
said the deadline. He said,what's your deadline? I said, this
(44:43):
year. So we're going to getit together because everyone's busy in a million
different directions. But that's what Ireally want to do so. Yeah,
I want to throw something out.I think I've told you this wrong again,
my son, Ben Trick. Doyou want me to Intromyeah, Well
that's how I know you. Hetold me one time of something about you.
(45:07):
He thought that as much as anybody. He knows that Ron Soltie plays
music out of sheer love of music, and that's going to be part of
your legacy too. I think howmuch you really really love music and the
joy you get from playing it.Thank you so much, and Ben for
(45:28):
saying it. Yeah, I've honoredto do it. That's a beautiful line.
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