Jerrod Isaman … Five bands later Jerrod Isaman is from Olean, New York. His father was a rock guitar musician but his first music mentor was his grandmother who was a huge Hank Williams fan. Jerrod never had a formal lesson but plays guitar, accordion, and piano. He was traveling around the Northeast, playing acoustic […]
Din Allen “suffering of change.” James “Din” Allen came to Key West from New York City in 1978, to join his brother Woody and to play bass at the Rose Tattoo, (currently, Bagatelle). They performed at other locations but after the winter season ended, it became more difficult to find work. Most bands would leave […]
Joey Philpott — Friday Church Joseph David Philpott (Joey) was born and raised in Roanoke, Virginia. He idolized his grandfather (Andy Anderson) who played bluegrass music and had a band. Around age 8, he started playing music and would follow “Papa” to most of his gigs and quickly learned a few songs. At age 10, […]
Tony Elitcher Tony Elitcher was born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Montrose, a small town just north of the city. When Tony was six, his parents found a soprano saxophone for $25 and Tony began to play music. He attended Hendrick Hudson High School which had a fantastic music education program. The high […]
Happy New Year – Music and AI Time magazine selected the Architects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as the 2025 Person of the Year. The issue had column after column about the leaders of AI, investments in AI, and the scary new world of AI. They listed some disturbing statistics like Meta, Google, Oracle, and Amazon […]
Thom LaFond “An art of time” Thom LaFond grew up in Albany, New York and began playing music on his mother’s guitar when he was nine years old. By the age of thirteen Thom was committed to being a professional musician. He had musical relatives that lived in New York City and across the river […]
Tom Luna “Infected by the Key West virus” A southern boy, Tom Luna was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1952. He jokingly says they were a totally homophobic bigoted family. At age seven, he saw the Bolshoi Ballet on the Ed Sullivan Show and told his parents he wanted to be a ballet dancer. He […]
James Slater – Key West is his soulful wild sister James Slater was born in Durham, North Carolina. His father was employed at Duke University. His mother, who is Bolivian/British, wanted to move to some place warm. They moved to Miami, FL for a year and then to the Panama Canal Zone where lived from […]
Peter Diamond “The most important thing is always the next song.” Peter Diamond Ilacqua was born in central New York near Syracuse. At age 6, he moved to Key West to live with his father. Peter graduated from Key West High School in 1961. He later went to school in Miami and became […]
Paulie Walterson Music is family. Born in 1945, Paulie Walterson is a fifth-generation Key West Conch. His father worked for the Navy, and they lived in a house next to Harris Elementary School. His family originated in Spanish Wells, on the northern end of Eleuthera Island, in the Bahamas. His cousin, Armond Walterson, was married […]
