Music EPK
It all started at age 7 when I walked up to a baby grand piano in my uncle's house in Princeton, Illinois and started to peck out the melody of a song that was playing on a phonograph record in the room. It turns out that my mother had the same gift. They had found out about hers in the same room and on the same piano when she was a little girl. My mother became a fine player. For me, music lessons followed, taught by our church organist. He would let me pick songs I wanted to learn and then he would get the sheet music and we would practice. My parents would have me play for them at their cocktail parties.
Like all the other kids in the 60’s, I had a transistor radio. When the Beatles hit in 64' most kids were listening to WLS and WCFL radio stations in Chicago who played the Beatles day and night. Me, I was listening to WVON, one of the Black stations in town. One of their tag lines was, it’s so nice I’m going to play it twice, and they’d play a song a second time. Junior Walker and the All Stars, Marvin Gaye and Tammii Terrell, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, the Chi-Lites, the Delfonics and dozens more artists. But I also listened to other kinds of music and I really liked the National Barn Dance radio show on Saturday nights. George Gobel, Gene Autry, The Hilltoppers, Homer and Jethro, Bill Monroe and a host of other Country and Western greats.
I guess my taste of what music I listened to wasn’t pigeon holed. When rock was king in the mid to late 60’s my tastes we still off center. The Yardbirds, The Animals, The Kinks, The Doors and in the later 60’s, MC5.
If music is being played well by musicians that mean it, it resonates with me.
The neighborhood that I grew up in, in Chicago was a short walk from Maxwell Street. There, in the backyards and alleys you could find some of the best blues musicians, playing for change. They would use broken beer bottle necks as their slide and sometimes they were missing a string or 2. But none of that mattered to me. I was mesmerized by the songs and the way they were delivered by these fine artists.
By the mid sixties I was also playing guitar. I had to beg my father to get me one and he brought home a $10 nylon string guitar. When I complained that I wanted an electric guitar he told me to learn how to play the acoustic first. Yikes, the fretboard was as wide as a sidewalk. But I got a Mel Bay chord book and taught myself the chords and started to play, yes, Beatle songs. I could also figure out songs that I heard on the radio. I kept pestering my father for an electric because I wanted to form a band. He ultimately relented and I got a Teisco guitar and a Kay amplifier. Good enough. I formed a band with other local kids called Mixed Emotions. We played a wide variety of material but we had a lot of Black songs on our set list like Shotgun, Mustang Sally, My Girl and others.
We were the best band in the neighborhood but broke up when our drummer was drafted for the Vietnam war.
In Th 19080's I was in several bands in the Chicagoland area including Remote Control and fallen pieces before becoming a paftner and chief audio engineer at the rehearsal and recording facility, chicago music complex.
I started to write music in my teens and learned engineering and production in my 20's. Now I have full range of music available. I have 100% ownership of these songs and I own the master reordings. Please enjoy my songs:
looking for life
https://joeleighmusic.com/track/2835850/looking-for-life
Lonely Boy
https://joeleighmusic.com/track/2897765/lonely-boy
Will
https://joeleighmusic.com/track/2897767/will
I believe
https://joeleighmusic.com/track/2897769/i-believe
a little bit of nothin
https://joeleighmusic.com/track/2897770/a-little-bit-of-nothing
So Free so right
https://joeleighmusic.com/track/2897771/so-free-so-right
You're the one
https://joeleighmusic.com/track/2897772/you-re-the-one
On christmas we find our way home
https://joeleighmusic.com/track/2897768/on-christmas-we-find-our-way-home
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