I am a nature boy, fortunate to have grown up on the NW outskirts of smalltown Wadsworth, Ohio. It was the 1960-70’s. My identical twin, Kevin, and four other smart and hilarious brothers were adjusting to being a family split by divorce, uncommon in 1966, all stuffing into a 900 sq ft rented home without a furnace. Being a twin gave me a deep, resonant confidence in myself because Kevin and I naturally mirrored each other’s intimate feelings and hopes. Our father, a short, bright, muscular man from inner-city Akron, had an overpowering need to show the world financial success. But, during our childhood, his once thriving home construction business fell apart spectacularly and he resorted to fraud, bad checks, and lies to keep his front going until about 1965. Alcohol, blame and domestic violence assuaged his frustration and shame. Mom emerged a lion – taking a minimum wage lineworker job in an injection mold factory while Dad served time and disappeared. Respected and loved by her fellow workers and factory owners, Mom served her workmates as their union rep. and by my teens she managed AkroMills’ warehouse and shipping. She demonstrated that anything was possible if you put your mind to it, doing what was right, and working hard to overcome any obstacle.
In many ways, I benefitted by growing up poor. The boredom from not being able to afford anything was always short lived and our little house vibrated with creativity. Every sunny day was spent outside with our noses in the earth, claiming the 10 acre wood next to the house and nearby gorge. From age 8 to 18, every afternoon of the year and pre-dawn on Sundays, we brothers delivered our separate newspaper routes, serving well, walking miles from door to door. We spent our earnings on records and plastic model kits (military aircraft and cars). I also began buying used reel-to-reel tape decks and frankensteining used audio parts. Wadsworth’s public schools had a strong music department. In the 5th grade, Bob Cole taught me how to read and play saxophone and Art Baldwin taught Kevin trumpet on pawn shop instruments disbanded by our older brothers. By 7th grade I loved the music of Charles Ives, Stan Kenton with Lee Konitz, Yes, giant chords on the bandroom’s piano, Tolkien, sci-fi novels, the occult, astronomy, chemistry, and the ancient history of religion. By 9th grade the school provided me with jazz saxophone lessons – which introduced me to music theory, which was so enthralling that I lost interest in playing sax. Without piano skills, my deepest natural connection to writing music was listening and imagining.
On several occaissions, I was given spiritual experiences I can’t name – Truth, maybe; I became connected to Whole Universe without planning or looking for it. In still moments, a spirit bloomed up like a golden, liquid light in my core. Maybe it’d be while delivering newspapers under a fabulous dawn or sunset, or, laying under a tree or in the cool grass watching the clouds move, or, in an empty, quiet house watching a mote of dust float through a sunbeam: slowly filling me up till my heart ‘runneth over’ with a bright tranquility. Those profound experiences took up permanent residence in my heart, never to be forgotten, revealing a greater mystery which remains a compass when assessing all the challenges of life.
School was my favorite place from 3rd grade on, stable, organized, clean, and teachers who loved me for my enthusiasm to learning. From then to graduation, it was (mostly) too easy and I didn’t have to study. This was handy since I didn’t have a private environment at home, but, the time came while taking non-music undergraduate college courses that the lack of that skill took its toll. Hence my becoming a composer instead of a scientist. And after my Master’s degree in Music Composition was finally accomplished while working factories and retail, I decided that I wasn’t financially prepared to provide myself a suitable study environment to pursue a PhD. Besides, I had fallen in love with a beautiful pianist and I was finally getting enough studio work as a Synclavierist to consider quitting my day job.