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The great guitar interrogator Roy Clark guided me through the astral plains one foggy night in Cypress, California. He was on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He picked his guitar with such exuberance and joy that I decided to investigate this phenomena, this peculiar world of picking and grinning. Roy was to be my Virgil and through him I discovered the world of sound,the world of Django Reinhardt, a gypsy from Belgium who opened doors into the magical world of fire and nomadic mystery,a new sacred kabbalah of musical possibility-later i discovered such zen lunatic guitarophiles as Tal Farlow, Wes Montgomery, Ted Greene, Joe Diorio, Linc Chamberlin, John McLaughlin, Chet Atkins, , Jimmy Page, Robert Fripp and Derek Bailey who fed my wild perfection and imagination with shadow and wonder. This led to music from exotic landscapes and mystical porticoes. Leading the way was John Coltrane whose spiritual investigations and jazz prayer a love supreme would leave an indelible impression-coltrane was a musical omnivore and was drawn to the enormous vistas of music's potential to heal illuminate and shed light into those hidden chambers of the heart-because of his influence i began to discover other kinds of sound and vision like Tuvan throat singing, Greek Rembetika, the Fado from Portugal, the Tango from Argentina, the Mariachi from Mexico, music from Russia-Greece-the Middle East, and the many wild flavors of India-Koto music from Japan, Duduk music of Armenia, the Erhu music of China, the Gamelan orchestras of Indonesia, bossa nova and the music of Brazil,the mystery voices of bulgaria and the Saz music of Turkey-every culture is defined by its art and music-it reflects the landscape-the mood-the collective emotional state-the joy-the longing-the hope-the sadness-the beauty-the complexity-music knows no bounds-is universal-cosmic-solitary-communal-mystical-in greek mythology orpheus played his lyre to enchant the dwellers of the underworld to revive his beloved eurydice-king david played the lyre to cure his father king saul's madness-music as offering-lamentation-celebration-supplicaion-praise-ritual-b irth-death-seduction-in all of nature music can be found-the sea-the earth and the sky all have secret melodies lying in wait to communicate divine transmissions- i joined the hollywood freak parade fresh out of high school in 1979 zooming through the portals of wild rock n roll excess and examining the codes of loud guitars-wailing vocals-big hair and this new phenomenon called woman-each night provided a clue into this grand mystery-the players changed as did the band names(the ocean,uz,lights,the white,american heroes,mondo cane) but the mission was the same-to explore the outer reaches of human behavior and to discover thy ain true self-i found myself in such illustrious dungeons as the starwood-the troubadour-the whiskey-madame wongs-radio city-the woodstock concert theatre-the queen mary-and many others that have been retired by the mistress called faded memory-sometime in the mid 80's i met and had a brief musical encounter with mark stein a music legend from 60's psyche icons the vanilla fudge-we were called danger zone and from him i learned many profound lessons and for this i am eternally grateful-serendipity then led me into the world of a band called giuffria and my first major label contract with MCA records-the album called silk and steel found your humble narrator on dick clark's american bandstand and a strange variety show called dance fever but no big time rock stardom-to my great relief and dismay another rock n roll meltdown-