BIO LONG FORM 495 WORDS

It all began in the south of England, in the darkened rooms of his grandmother’s bungalow. There was an upright piano and a glorious windup gramophone that smelled of furniture polish and lubricating oil. Sam was four years old when he learned how to play the old clanky 78 records by himself in an even darker room. One record got played more than the rest. “My Happiness” by Ella Fitzgerald. He would look at the record label spinning around and wonder where that magical sound came from. He would later learn that place was called, “America”.

When his grandmother died, the family inherited both the piano and the gramophone. Sam would sit on the accompanying piano stool and tinkle for hours on the mysterious notes. He can still remember the first coherent two-handed sequence he composed, hardly worth the name of music, but it thrilled like nothing else.

When Sam took the gramophone to pieces to fix it, his father threw it out. The piano took up too much room, his mother said, so she agreed to give it away.

But then came the reel-to-reel tape recorder, a Christmas gift. And then a secondhand guitar. Sam would record his first guitar chord sequence and play and sing along to it. He can still recall the tune.

A new, nylon stringed guitar appeared. 20-year-old Sam wrote his very first song with that guitar. A plea to a girl who wasn’t keen on continuing a relationship. The song didn’t do the trick. More songs came. Over 50 in one year.

Years and occupations flew by. Electrician, laboratory assistant, teacher, social worker, computer salesman, lecturer in computer studies. Sam bought an acoustic guitar. An Epiphone FT140. Then a Teac 4-track recorder. And then, amazingly, got a job as a recording engineer at a little Bogner Regis start-up called Airship Records. He felt like he had come home. More songs were written.

A London record company wanted an environmentally themed instrumental, highlighting the plight of whales. Sam had a tune which he mapped out with a borrowed synthesizer. It was released as a single in 1979 called, “The Last Whale,” now a collectors’ item. It was not a hit.

Sound guy at Butlin’s Holiday Camp Theater, programmer at a London computer learning company, more songs written, more home studio gear, more doubts about his ability to be anybody in the music business. Sam was now in his 60s.

Then an emotional whirlwind occurred in west London. Sam got married. Got visas to the magical place called “America”. Landed in Austin, Texas. To live. For good.

More studio gear. A wonderful, miraculous, digital, musical hurdy-gurdy. More songs. More harmonies. More confidence. Sam is now 78 years of age, proof that it’s never too late to follow the dream.

12 tracks of the album “Yellow and Other Sounds” are live on Spotify, Apple Music, and all other major steaming platforms. More singles and albums on the way.