Tony Baltimore Real people are playing real music on real instruments in real time By Ralph De Palma Tony Durante was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. His stage name, Tony Baltimore, came from his hometown. He started playing drums when he was four. His parents were very tolerant and understanding. Later, when he had […]
Key West Version of the Buena Vista Social Club By Ralph De Palma With help from family and friends, I was able to talk Coffee Butler out of retirement to help launch my second volume of The Soul of Key West at a December 2015 concert. Since that sold-out concert, “Coffee Butler and Friends” […]
Howard Livingston and the MM24 Band By Ralph De Palma Howard was born and raised in Cumberland, Kentucky. Music was part of his growing up – they always had a guitar in the house. They moved to Marion, Indiana where Howard played in the high school band, graduating in 1969. He moved to Chicago, studied engineering, […]
Cliff Sawyer – He would have been a household name By Ralph De Palma Cliff Sawyer was born and raised in Key West and has been singing since he was four years old. While growing up in Bahama Village, Cliff remembers hearing street corner bands singing and playing outside his window. His father played the trombone […]
Cory Heydon Cory Heydon grew up in Rudyard, Montana, population 183. It’s approximately a 3-hour drive from Glacier National Park/International Peace Park. Cory feels, “If people could go and experience the wilderness there and hang for a while, we would all have fewer problems”. His mother played the piano for Our Savior’s Lutheran Church. The […]
Dottie Martin “…one of the legendary Key West classics.” By Ralph De Palma Dottie was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. At age 17, she fell in love with a 4ft. 10in. jockey. They were married, traveled around the country, and later, divorced. Dottie started singing and performing at the age of 20. In […]
Lance Taylor – Woody Guthrie Was the First Punk Rocker By Ralph De Palma Lance Taylor was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1973. His father was in the Navy so the family moved frequently. He started playing the trombone in the sixth grade. He received a partial scholarship as a pitcher to West Virginia Wesleyan […]
Bubba Lownotes “The Lord Loves A Lazy Tenor” By Ralph De Palma Robert Barton, aka Bubba Lownotes, is a member of the Virginia Musicians Mafia here in Key West. He was born in Richmond, Virginia. The family moved to Greensboro and then Charlotte, North Carolina. In grade school, he played the clarinet then the tuba, […]
Larry Smith and Christine Cordone “A Musical Power Couple” Musical couple Larry Smith and wife, Christine Cordone, come from upstate New York and spent many years in the Woodstock area. Originally a schoolteacher, Larry instinctively nurtures others and helps promote them, to raise the level of their performance. He feels music is not about self-aggrandizement […]
Gary Hempsey The Hippie Doctrine By Ralph De Palma The original American Bandstand was in Philadelphia, and Gary Hempsey’s older sister took him along to listen to the music. Gary was thirteen when Woodstock happened. He loved the music and began playing the guitar and taking lessons in Center City, Philadelphia. At seventeen, he started […]
