Raven Cooper “Everyone needs music, it’s like magic.” Raven grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas and was a competitive freestyle and butterfly swimmer and diver in high school. At age five, she saw the movie, “The Color Purple.” The scenes set in a juke joint inspired her to be a singer. Listening to Janis Joplin was […]
Larry “Guitar” Baeder ” You can’t play American music without feeling you’re a link in the chain.” Larry Baeder was born in Philadelphia and raised in Kansas City, Kansas. Many of the older jazz greats from Kansas City (Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Lester Young) were still alive while Larry was growing up and played a […]
Paul Cotton – “He didn’t have fans in Key West, Paul had an extended family…Rest in Peace” By Ralph De Palma It is with great sadness that I report the passing of music legend and Key Wester, Paul Cotton. Paul didn’t have fans in Key West, he had an extended family. After spending a life in […]
The Philosophy of Piano Moving – The Movie Early 2018 Steve Panariello, Chad Newman, and myself conducted a series of meetings to develop the scope of a video documentary of the Key West music scene. The concept was to produce a three dimensional video version of my books the “Soul of Key West”. We […]
Caffeine Carl Wagoner – The Real Thing By Ralph De Palma Carl Wagoner was born and raised in Key West. His father played ukulele in a barber shop quartet. There was a Hammond organ in the Wagoner home, and by the time he was five, Carl had learned to play quite well. Radio station WKWF, […]
Terri White – The Lady’s Got to Sing. Born and raised in Palo Alto, California, Terri White grew up in a family of musicians and vocalists and has been performing since she was eight years old. She started out as a “hoofer”, tap dancing. She moved to New York and sang in theater and plays, […]
Nothing lasts forever but Kent Smith (aka: St. Petey Twig, aka: Barry Cuda), a fifth-generation Floridian, who has been pushing a 500 pound upright acoustic piano down the streets of Key West for almost forty years, is now leaving us. There is some dignity in the saga of Barry Cuda music and memories. Cuda’s performance […]
Barry Cuda The Philosophy of Piano Moving For the past 37 years Barry Cuda has refused to play a “Robo Piano” (electronic keyboard) and has moved a 500 lb upright acoustic piano down the streets of Key West to thousands of gigs. Over the years he has developed a technique of moving his piano, […]
Happy 80th Birthday OMG! The times really are a changin. I can remember listening to the songs of Bob Dylan while driving in my 1962 Ford Galaxy convertible with the top down, across the Bahia Honda bridge – the original bridge. Something about his music always gave me peace. Its difficult to believe the great […]
51st EARTH DAY JAM with That Hippie Band Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson saw the ravages of the 1969 Santa Barbara, California oil spill. He saw the Cuyahoga River catch fire from pollutants in downtown Cleveland. The LA smog was so bad you could no longer see the famous Hollywood sign. He founded the first […]
