Personal Bio contains details that would be of value to family and close friends.
Born in 1948 as part of the Baby Boomer Generation. I don't remember much of my early life before starting to study music.
My immediate family were not musicians, although my grandfather, Anthony, was a bugler in WWI. My Aunt Helen tells stories of playing the Song of Norway for me as an infant and she reports that my eyes danced all over. Clearly, she had noticed that I was interested in music.
Florence Schaefer, who we called Aunt Florence even though she was actually a first cousin of my father, was the one responsible for starting me off in music. Florence lept into action when my family visited while I was in Junior High School and shoved a small marimba into the car. When the family returned home to Mt Prospect, they found me a marimba teacher at Carter's Music Store. His name was Bob Clair. Many years later at UW Oshkosh, I auditioned a percussionist whose private teacher was Bob Clair. That was quite a full circle for me. Unfortunately, some character flaw causes my to fall out of touch with my influencers