JD Bouchardes music career began early and, if there hadnt been a piano in the lobby of the Lodi Memorial Hospital, perhaps no one would have been the wiser. The instrument was a gift from Houghton W. Stockton, a Lodi wine tycoon who felt one belonged there and, because hed donated most of the funds for the new East Wing Burn Unit the previous year, everyone heartily agreed.After checking out with the maternity ward receptionist and going downstairs to sign the last of the paperwork, JDs mother had set him down that late November morning in the lobby while her husband pulled up the car (people werent quite as aware back then, so setting down your baby and walking away for awhile was pretty commonplace back then). In those spare moments, however, JD managed to wrestle himself from his blanket, crawl from the carrier, scale the piano bench, and began playing Do You Know The Way To San Jose? (it had been playing on the speaker above his crib earlier that morning).Hed gotten the key wrong, placing the song in E-flat (Dionne Warwicks original version was in D), and hadnt major-sevened most of the chords but, being less than three days old and having hands the size of teaspoons, the performance was no small feat.NOT ONLY THAT, an RN on-duty that day told Rolling Stone in an interview many years later, HE DIDN'T EVEN HAVE THE NECK MUSCLES TO HOLD HIS HEAD UP. HIS HEAD WAS LOLLING LEFT AND RIGHT THEN ALL THE WAY BACK THE ENTIRE TIME. AND HE COULDN'T EVEN OPEN HIS EYES. DESPITE WHAT THE CRITICS SAY, IT WAS REALLY SOMETHING SPECIAL HE DID THAT DAY.
When JDs mother Jackie walked back into the lobby from the front entrance to pick up her son, he was in the process of being escorted to the rear exit of the building by the security officer on duty, who had strict orders not to let anyone play the piano, anyone, no matter what. When the infant hadnt responded to his litany of questions, hed decided enough was enough, but he was stopped in time, and the matter was cleared up and put to rest.JD played not just two more songs that morning, as is widely told, but three: Rachmaninoffs Piano Concerto In C minor, Op. 18, Wayne Newtons Daddy Dont you Walk So Fast; and also Shinin On Me, by the Mike Curb Congregation, all of which were in regular rotation on the hospitals Muzak system.Perhaps in New York or Cincinnati, this wouldve gone primarily unnoticed, but this was Lodi, and to those scattered few in the lobby that fall day, this rivaled the annual Grape Carnival or the next Peter Sellers movie.I'LL NEVER FORGET IT, Candice Dunde, the hospital receptionist that day, told Spin in an exclusive interview before her death in 1982. HE ONLY HIT TWO OR THREE WRONG NOTES THAT DAY, AT LEAST THAT I HEARD, AND THAT'S ONLY BECAUSE HIS HANDS WERE THE SIZE OF TEASPOONS. THE CLASSICAL PIECE WAS ALL RIGHT, BUT HE REALLY NAILED THE WAYNE NEWTON SONG. BRILLIANT.Sadly, JDs father Jim missed his sons first-ever piano concert: he was in the car out front the whole time, honking angrily, wondering where in Gods sweet earth his wife had gotten off to.But his mother only smiled quietly to herself, re-wrapping her son as the gathered throng clapped and hooted and cheered. JDs sister had been born seventeen months earlier and, before she left the hospital, the newborn had picked up a paintbrush, and painted an oil-on-canvas landscape later likened to Classical Impressionism, or the early Flemish masters.She knew her children were destined for magnificent things.Want to hear the rest of JD Bouchardes wildly exciting biography, I Lay At The Feet of No Small Thing, by Isaac Graves? Buy it online at amazon.com!
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