My mother always used to tell me that she would dance around the living room to The Beatles when I was bouncing around in her womb, thus beginning my innate and intrinsic lifelong love of music. I always hesitated to tell her that The Beatles didn’t really start recording until a year after I was born, but no matter, treasured Beatles 45s played endlessly in our house when I was an infant, and from then on, music was embedded in my heart and soul and has been to this day. Everything from pop, folk, jazz, classical, rock and roll, Broadway tunes and much more wafted through the beams of our converted barn and was as much a part of the world I lived in as the air I breathed. I would attend my first concert with my parents at 15 (Neil Diamond at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium) and my first concert without them also at 15 (Chicago at New Haven Coliseum, hey what’s that sweet smoky smell?) and from then on, music has been part of the fabric of who I am, my DNA, my skin, blood and everything else in between. With hundreds of live shows under my belt, and hundreds of albums, CDs and cassettes (and now mp3’s and more modern formats) surrounding me wherever I am. I cannot imagine a life without music riding shotgun in my front seat on this long ride of life.
About a dozen years ago, I realized the writing that I had been doing since a young age, and that had become very successful at in my TV career (garnering me three Emmy awards) could rather easily be translated to writing about the music that I loved so deeply, and I began to find ways to interview some of my music idols for publication in local newspapers. From there, in 2008, I started midliferocker.com, a very simple blog-type site that really was nothing more than a portal for my pieces on these musicians. I became affiliated with some well-known local sites and along with posting on my blog, have contributed to these other sites for the last ten years, building a reputation not only locally with some of the region’s most popular venues, but on social media and within the music industry.
Now, it’s time to TURN UP THE VOLUME. Enter: LivingonMusic.com, a comprehensive website re-dedicated to my love of music, which will include not only more of those robust and fascinating interviews with some of the world’s most legendary musicians as well as up and comers and some unknowns, but also podcasts so people can hear these musicians tell their amazing stories, as well as a section devoted to my own music, as I have been singing in local bands for 12 years now, almost as long as I have been a serious music writer, and it has brought me as much joy as the writing has, if not more.
So I ask you, I invite you, I urge you, to come along on this next musical journey with me, as I take my deeply passionate love of music to the next level. Read and enjoy the pieces, listen and fall into the podcasts, check out where I’m singing live and come see us play, and please check in and tell me how I’m doing or what bands you’d like to see interviewed, what venues you’d like to see us perform at, or just share anything about your own love of music. I’d love to share my passion with you and vice versa. Let’s do this together.
Because to me, there is NOTHING like Living On Music!