{"id":3892,"date":"2026-07-23T01:01:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T01:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=3892"},"modified":"2026-07-23T01:06:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T01:06:20","slug":"from-the-vaults-tickling-the-ivories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=3892","title":{"rendered":"From the Vaults: Tickling the Ivories"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This <\/span>FTV<\/span><\/i> is an ode to those keyboard players out there who bring a lot of joy to those of us who don\u2019t possess that particular skill.\u00a0 Being married to a church organist doesn\u2019t skew my view of keyboard players one bit.\u00a0 She took piano lessons at an early age and at 14 was pressed into service one Sunday when the regular organist was unavailable.\u00a0 Christine is fluent in both piano and organ having accompanied both school and church groups.\u00a0 She has played at more weddings and funerals that you can shake a stick at.\u00a0 St. Paul\u2019s Lutheran Church in Mass City has an old portable pump organ and back when the parish held an outdoor service at Twin Lakes, she got to practice that ancient craft as well.\u00a0 Believe me when I say that pumping the pedals and playing at the same time are not necessarily compatible acts for mere mortals like me.\u00a0 Did I mention that she also sings while she plays?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0St. Paul\u2019s congregation will be celebrating our 125th anniversary with a special service and fellowship on August 2, 2026 (the service will begin at 10:30, with lunch to follow).\u00a0 We had planned to honor our hard working organist when she reached her 50th anniversary on the bench but our plans were thwarted by COVID (just like many other things that had to be postponed during the darkest days of the pandemic).\u00a0 It is high time that we are (finally) going to get around to saying \u2018thank you\u2019 to Christine for her 56 years of service tickling the ivories (just a little later than we originally planned).\u00a0 To wrap up all the loose ends, we will also be celebrating the 25th anniversary of Pastor Bill Jacobson\u2019s ordination – he has been acting as our interim administrator and ministering to our flock going on three years as we seek a new pastor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps it was just my lot in life to rub elbows with people (and yes, to marry someone) who speak that mysterious language called \u2018keyboard\u2019.\u00a0 Before getting \u2018the drum bug\u2019, I was destined to be the musical sibling in our house.\u00a0 My folks purchased a nice upright piano with the idea that my older sister would be \u2018the one\u2019.\u00a0 I have no recollection of her ever touching it and before long, it was announced that my dad was building a basement fireplace for our up the street neighbors. They had bartered a deal that they would pay for the materials and his labor would be done in exchange for piano lessons.\u00a0 It was only at that point that the second grade me discovered I was going to be the recipient of those lessons from Mrs. Bowers.\u00a0 Maybe this was the plan all along but who knows?\u00a0 It made sense that as long as we had a piano sitting in the living room, someone should learn to play it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0None of the basic lessons from the big red Thompson Piano Lesson book were that difficult.\u00a0 I learned the hand positions, time signatures, and the obligatory A to G note locations on both the sheet music and the piano keys.\u00a0 I distinctly remember running home to play <\/span>Good King Wenceslas <\/span><\/i>for my mother and how happy she was to hear our piano actually being played.\u00a0 My downfall as a piano player wasn\u2019t learning to play;\u00a0 it was the practicing that did me in.\u00a0 It took me many years to understand why I plateaued and began to lose interest.\u00a0 It all made sense when I heard Billy Joel tell the story about his early piano lessons (and no, there is no level where my playing approached where he took his\u2026after all, he is <\/span>The Piano Man!<\/span><\/i>)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Joel often shares the story of how his \u2018banging on the piano\u2019 at age four led to his mother having him take formal lessons.\u00a0 Over the next twelve years, he became quite accomplished but also found the endless practicing to be dull.\u00a0 The lessons did pique his interest in classical music so he began dabbling in making up his own tunes.\u00a0 Billy found out that this was a bit of a problem when his mother would ask him what he was playing (he would make up a title).\u00a0 When she asked him to play it again, he learned he had to actually pay attention to what he was inventing so he could repeat it and not make her suspicious.\u00a0 He got very good at remembering and repeating songs he had made up on the spot, which for someone who made a career out of it, this was not necessarily a bad thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When I heard him tell this story, it dawned on me that my progression in learning sheet music was stunted because I got used to playing songs from memory.\u00a0 It took me one or two passes at a piece of music to learn it and from there on, I could play them without really having to follow the music.\u00a0 Perhaps I needed a revelation of some sort to kick me in the butt and make me spend more time practicing to improve.\u00a0 Unfortunately, near the end of third grade, I had just the sort of thing happen that should have lit a fire under me, but it had the opposite effect.\u00a0 Our third grade teacher held an in class talent show where any students who took piano lessons were expected to play something for the class.\u00a0 I do not remember how many of us performed that day, but the one who stood out was Mary Isabelle.\u00a0 The comparison between her playing and mine that day really took the air out of my musical balloon.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mary was that one shining star that every classroom seems to have.\u00a0 She was simply the best at everything we did.\u00a0 She could out run and out jump everyone in our class.\u00a0 She could sing and play the piano at a level that seemed well above her age.\u00a0 After plunking through my piece (and no, I have buried the memory of what it was in some deep mental hole), my jaw dropped when Mary took her turn.\u00a0 It did not seem real that a third grader could play that well.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t out and out quit practicing (by then I was on my own anyway and not taking lessons from Mrs. Bowers, no doubt another reason I stagnated), but my keyboard time became greatly diminished.\u00a0 Luckily, fourth grade brought the prospect of taking drum lessons the next year and what I had learned about note values and rhythms was not wasted.\u00a0 Learning to play the drums also gave me several opportunities to perform with Mary in high school.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0To this day I remember Mary as being one of those remarkable individuals who had so many talents.\u00a0 In high school, she had a lead role in <\/span>Bye Bye Birdie, <\/span><\/i>the musical we did in tenth grade.\u00a0 Her mother may have been the play\u2019s director, but that certainly wasn\u2019t why Mary got the part.\u00a0 It was thoroughly enjoyable watching her work from my drum throne in the pit orchestra.\u00a0 My high school band (The Twig) would play for the youth services at Messiah Lutheran Church and Mary was the music leader.\u00a0 After high school, I lost touch with her and was sad to hear she died far too young in 2010 at the age of 57.\u00a0 Unsurprisingly, she had completed advanced degrees in music and continued to excel in everything she did.\u00a0 Married and living in Escanaba at the time of her death, it took me a few minutes to figure out who my old friend Jim was talking about when he emailed to tell me that \u2018Mary St. Pierre\u2019 had passed away.\u00a0 He sensed my confusion and said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry – Mary Isabell\u2026St. Pierre was her married name.\u201d\u00a0 Whenever I think back to the end of my own lackluster efforts learning the piano, I can still see her smiling as she played her piece so beautifully the day of our third grade performance day.\u00a0 Perhaps Mary is one of the reasons for my life-long fondness for those who tickle the ivories well.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The summer before my senior year in high school, I had two encounters with accomplished keyboard players.\u00a0 The first was a percussion major at NMU named Larry Henry.\u00a0 We were introduced by one of his drum instructors who happened to be my next door neighbor on Norway Avenue.\u00a0 In July of 1970, Larry was short a drummer for a wedding gig they were booked to play at the Holiday Inn.\u00a0 His \u2018trio\u2019 came over to find out if I could actually play and Larry was happy to hear I was already a member of the musician\u2019s union.\u00a0 He told me to show up at 8 PM the next Saturday night and to be sure to bring my kit (he was kidding).\u00a0 I say \u2018trio\u2019 because the band was called the Larry Henry Trio but that night there were four of us with Larry on keyboards, a bass player, and a trombone player.\u00a0 Without so much as a rehearsal, I played my first professional gig with three music majors.\u00a0 Larry gave me some pointers on what to play for the obligatory wedding reception polkas (which is hard for a 100 percent Finn like myself to admit), but all in all, my first paying gig was a blast.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A week or so later, I got a call from another keyboard player named Rex Bignal.\u00a0 He said, \u201cLarry Henry gave me your number.\u00a0 My drummer quit on me and I have Friday and Saturday night gigs at Diamond Club for all of August.\u00a0 I play a Hammond B-3 and my repertoire is pretty much instrumental cocktail lounge music.\u00a0 If you can help me out, it would pay $40 a weekend.\u00a0 Do you know how to play with brushes?\u201d\u00a0 I can definitely trace my love of the Hammond B-3 sound to that month of gigs with Rex.\u00a0 After the first night jitters wore off, he was easy to back up.\u00a0 Larry must have told him I was a senior which Rex had assumed meant \u2018senior in college\u2019.\u00a0 When he saw the 16 year old me the first night, he said, \u201cLarry said you were a senior – high school, huh?\u00a0 Whatever you do, if the owner asks how old you are, tell him you are 18 and do NOT drink anything but pop during breaks.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Rex knew what his clientele wanted to hear and he could really make that B-3 sing.\u00a0 It was kind of weird to go from cocktail music on the weekends to rehearsing our Twig power trio stuff during the weeks leading up to our first paid job.\u00a0 The gig with Rex came with a bonus.\u00a0 He had purchased his previous drummer a 24 inch Zildjian cymbal and he offered to let me have it in lieu of one night\u2019s wages.\u00a0 I told him that it was worth much more than that but he just said, \u201cNot to me – I am sure you will make better use of it than I would.\u201d\u00a0 When we played our first high school dance as The Twig, this monster cymbal sounded great and raised the value of my kit by many steps.\u00a0 It also meant I had to start looking to replace my other cheap cymbals to match it, but it took a couple of years to make me a 100 percent Zildjian drummer.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0During my freshman year at Northern Michigan University, I decided to not join another band right away.\u00a0 I resurrected my sister\u2019s Montgomery Ward Airline acoustic guitar and started to teach myself the basics.\u00a0 Midway through the second semester, I hooked up with three airmen from K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base who played out as Cloudy and Cool.\u00a0 It happened after I had a couple of jam sessions in my basement with a keyboard player whose name I had found on a campus message board.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t seem to be going anywhere and I was about to tell him exactly that when he called and said, \u201cThere is a band from K.I. Sawyer looking for a keyboard player and a drummer.\u00a0 I invited them to come to your house so we can audition.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It turned out the keys guy\u2019s mother worked at Sawyer and told one of the guys in C&C that her son and a drummer were trying to get a band together.\u00a0 We did the audition and they hung around after the keys guy left.\u00a0 The leader Ray said, \u201cWe have an organ player.\u00a0 We need a drummer and if you want the gig, it is yours.\u00a0 Do you sing?\u201d\u00a0 As I was about to cut strings with the keyboard jam guy, there was no way for me to not take this opportunity.\u00a0 This was my second chance to play in a four piece band with keyboards (the Larry Henry Trio being the first).\u00a0 Thus began a two year stretch of constant gigging but there was one hitch.\u00a0 Not long after I joined, the keyboard player took a transfer to Greenland (yes, that Greenland, not the little town next to Mass City) and we had to come up with a new keys guy as quick as we could find one.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The fall before Cloudy and Cool entered the picture, I decided to\u00a0 give myself a new musical outlet by reaching back to my piano playing past.\u00a0 It seemed that having a keyboard around to help me transcribe songs might make it easier for me to get into a new band.\u00a0 I borrowed $500 from my folks and bought a used, somewhat reedy sounding organ (with an amp, mic stand, removable legs, and a hard shell case).\u00a0 I was surprised how much I remembered about tickling the ivories, but it also reminded me of my inadequacies when it came to reading sheet music.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I picked up an \u2018easy to play\u2019 book for The Guess Who\u2019s <\/span>Greatest Hits<\/span><\/i> album and began working it out.\u00a0 The keyboard stuff I was dissecting helped me come to grips with how to play more chord positions on my old Airline guitar.\u00a0 When my brother got me George Harrison\u2019s triple album <\/span>All Things Must Pass <\/span><\/i>for Christmas, it came with a booklet containing all the songs.\u00a0 I was having a ball figuring out more complicated tunes and used that knowledge to write out chord charts for new songs to play.\u00a0 Many of these would finally get put to use with the Air Force guys.\u00a0 With the addition of a new drummer, they decided to change their name to Knockdown.\u00a0 As the only band member eligible to join the musician\u2019s union, I also became the band\u2019s booking agent and they were happy we were able to get more jobs as a union band.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When the original keys guy went to Greenland, we picked up a temporary player by the name of Nick.\u00a0 He was a high school student at Gwinn and had his own little compact organ.\u00a0 He was fine playing with us in the summer of 1972, but couldn\u2019t commit to playing every weekend during the school year.\u00a0 Nick played great and we even worked up Uriah Heap\u2019s <\/span>Love Machine<\/span><\/i> so he could show off some of his organ chops in the introduction and solo section.\u00a0 When NMU resumed in the fall, I put out some index cards on the campus message boards looking for a new keyboard player.\u00a0 It took less than a week for me to get a call from a Manistique native named Dave Waters.\u00a0 If the name sounds somewhat familiar, he is the brother of White Pine (and later Ontonagon) science teacher Jim Waters whom I worked with for a number of years.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Dave had his own keys and he also dabbled on bass.\u00a0 He was glad to get the gig and really liked that my folks would invite him over for dinner some Sundays.\u00a0 It turns out the year my dad had been at the State Police Post in Manistique, he knew Dave\u2019s father, Dr. Waters.\u00a0 Dave was in pre-med himself so we only managed a bare-bones rehearsal to get him on board and the rest was left up to him to learn on the fly.\u00a0 It suddenly fell on me to show the real keyboard player in the band the little repeating organ riff in the song <\/span>It Never Rains In California.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 All was well until Dave announced that he would have to step out to concentrate on his studies.\u00a0 When we played foosball during breaks, Dave would sit in a booth and study his chemistry notes.\u00a0 We were disappointed, but it must have worked out for him as he did indeed become a doctor just like his father.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In the space of less than a year, Knockdown was now looking for our fourth keyboard player.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nick did a couple fill-ins for us until we were lucky enough to find another airman who played named Rich.\u00a0 He was rehearsing with a group of guys but that band wasn\u2019t coming together.\u00a0 He had us meet him in a dank old garage in the basement level of a house on Baraga Street not far from the place I had picked up my cheap little organ.\u00a0 We ran down a few songs and it was immediately apparent that a) he was eager to join and b) he could play anything.\u00a0 Rich said he would join on one condition – we had to load up his organ and move it to my house where we rehearsed right away.\u00a0 He was concerned that the other guys he was jamming with were going to be upset.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Rich came with a couple of positives beyond the fact that he was just a friendly, terrific human being.\u00a0 He also played harmonica and the instrument we loaded into my truck on the spot was a Hammond B-3 organ with a Leslie speaker.\u00a0 It was a bear to lug around but the sound he coaxed from it made it worthwhile.\u00a0 It weighed enough that having it too far back in my truck bed affected the traction of my front wheels (and nobody wants to steer a truck with the front wheels barely touching the pavement).\u00a0 With a cab level topper on the back of my pickup, it was no fun lugging it to the spot right behind the cab while doubled over at the waist.\u00a0 At least our new house on Summit Street had a basement level garage on the downhill side of our lot so we didn\u2019t have to tote it down any stairs to our rehearsal space.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Now that I had a regulation Hammond B-3 sitting in my basement, my little reedy organ became an afterthought.\u00a0 The speaker on the amp was starting to flutter but I was still able to sell the keys and amp for $300.\u00a0 A few years down the line I started feeling guilty for not paying off my family friendly loan department with this small windfall, but my mom said it was fine as long as it went toward my tuition.\u00a0 I had another \u2018Billy Joel\u2019 moment with my mother when I began noodling on the B-3.\u00a0 I would come upstairs and she would ask what I had been playing.\u00a0 The Moody Blues were high on my listening list so things like <\/span>Nights In White Satin <\/span><\/i>(from <\/span>Days of Future Past<\/span><\/i>), <\/span>For My Lady <\/span><\/i>(<\/span>Seventh Sojourn<\/span><\/i>), and <\/span>Watching and Waiting<\/span><\/i> (<\/span>To Our Children\u2019s Children\u2019s Children<\/span><\/i>) were fun to learn.\u00a0 After a while, my noodling sessions would be interrupted when she would call down the stairs and request a specific song by name.\u00a0 I guess it only took a decade for my mom to finally get to hear someone play the keys in our house.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Top Piece Video:\u00a0 One of my favorite keyboard players – Australia’s own Lachey Doley featured in this Internet collaboration with Joel Hoekstra, Mike Portnoy et al.\u00a0 Lachey also was on keys for Joe Bonamassa’s latest Royal Albert Hall shows when he replaced Reese Waynan’s in the spring of 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This FTV is an ode to those keyboard players out there who bring a lot of joy to those of us who don\u2019t possess that particular skill.\u00a0 Being married to a church organist doesn\u2019t skew my view of keyboard players one bit.\u00a0 She took piano lessons at an early age and at 14 was pressed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3892"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3896,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3892\/revisions\/3896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}