Jay Spell is currently undergoing treatment for esophageal cancer. Many of his friends are holding fundraisers to help him with medical expenses. The first fundraiser concert will be Wednesday, Dec. 5th at 8pm at Café Boogaloo in Hermosa Beach, CA.
Confirmed musicians thus far: Canned Heat, Alan Wright, Larry Raspberry, Pete Miller, Jerry Sikorski, Jay Spell, Cary Carloff, Jim Wheeler, Sal Guglielmi
Jay Spell:
I was born Jacob Astor Spell, Jr. on Dec. 22, 1945 in Sampson County, North Carolina.
Fortunately, back then education was compulsory even for blind kids. All states have at least one state-supported school for blind kids, often located in the state capitol. So at age 6, you are forced to attend that school, and if you live too far to commute every day, you live there in dorms. Actually, that is the best thing that could have happened to me--that school and living there. Piano and violin lessons were free, and I studied both all 12 years. I then attended Oberlin Conservatory as a piano performance major. But rock & roll ruled, and halfway through 2nd semester, I returned to North Carolina and rejoined a band I had left to attend conservatory.
One of my dearest schoolmates was Ronnie Milsap. We met in 1956 as I was leaving my violin lesson and he was coming in for his. The teacher had temporarily left the room, so we started talking and immediately discovered we were overwhelmingly consumed with two things--music and radio. We spent way much time the next few years in dorm rooms listening to music, analyzing music and the records of the day, learning about music, records, who wrote and produced what, discussing what we did and did not like about this record and that--preparing ourselves for our careers. We both knew we would do "the biz" from junior high on--him as a frontman, me as a sideman. In fact, we formed a rock & roll band and played fraternities locally.
Some groups and artists I've had the fortune of touring and/or recording with over the years:
Jimmy Buffett, Dan Penn, Don Nix, Steve Cropper, Poco, David Clayton-Thomas, Eddie Floyd, Tower Of Power, Roy Head, Jose Feliciano, John Mayall, Jeannie C. Riley, Ronnie Milsap, Richard Torrance and Eureka, Tim Krekel, Canned Heat, Jim Leslie Band, Vern Gosdin, The O'Kanes, Randy Travis, Dan Seals, Buddy Miller, Emmylou Harris, Conway Twitty, Little Texas, Robert Earle Keen, Michelle Shocked, Earle Gaines, Roscoe Shelton, Clifford Curry, Sam Lay, Baillee And The Boys, Judy Collins, Steve Ripley, The Tractors
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