My brother was an exceedingly talented keyboard player...he could even play it reverse. He'd stand behind the keyboard and somehow be able to play it still. He played in rock groups and tried out for some big name bands.
His "home" keyboard was a large top of the line Hammond with a built in Leslie. His gig keyboards were a Yamaha DX-7 and some Roland on a dual rack. His influences were John Lord (Deep Purple) and Jens Johansson (Yngwie). He could flat out rip! Then one day after university when he moved to Calgary...he just stopped playing. Cold turkey.
Our family was a little band. I played guitar (12 years of theory, lessons, etc), my bro on keyboards and my other bro was a drummer.
None of us play any more...except for me noodling around on small slide guitars (3-4 string cigar box) or a 4 string baritone ukele set up for slide....I'm fond of the dirty sound of Mississippi delta blues.
A cool bonus of all of this is our house (had a very large house) became a flop house for musicians. Got to know many talented people. The most talented being Dave Marton (aka Martone). After living at our house he went on to a scholarship at the prestigious Berkeley College of Music in Boston. He's even had my name in the acknowledgments in a couple of his albums. Plays it all..funk, fusion, shred, progressive, flamenco, etc Has funny stories about many stars (plays with Satrianni frequently.)
When he's not on tour, he lives and plays classical and flamenco in Vancouver..if anyone wants to meet him after a gig in Vancouver, hit me up.
http://davemartone.com
