Local restauranteur Richard Hatch was born in Miami and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. He played both violin and standup bass in grade school through high school. He loved music but said he was not a gifted musician and his violin teacher was just plain mean. He attended University of North Carolina and studied political […]
Soul of Key West Volume 1, second edition Now Available An updated version of the original Soul of Key West, Volume I, first released in 2013, has arrived and currently shipping. This was the first book ever written about our amazing Key West music scene. The Soul of Key West is a 104 page anthology […]
Martin Sedlak “…heard the violin from the first moment he was born” In 1987, Martin Sedlak was born in Benesov, Czechoslovakia, (now Czech Republic), a small town about 25 miles south of Prague. He has two sisters and is the middle child. He remembers vividly the sound of his grandfather, Antonin Sedlak, playing the violin […]
Nick Brownell was born in Kansas but raised in Sandusky, Ohio. He always loved to sing and had teachers that encouraged him. He has five brothers. When Nick was sixteen, a younger brother got a guitar. They learned to play together. Barry Ross, who was a little older, took Nick to house parties, and […]
Michael McCloud – a plethora of useless information Michael McCloud grew up in Beckley West Virginia and decided he wanted to play music very early in childhood. His father was a man of music, but he was not a musician. His Grandmother was a piano player from Wales, she sang in Welsh. Early on his […]
Marjory Lee “Living on an Island” You have to travel South Carolina’s SR 21 through Beaufort, Lady’s Island, St. Helena Island, and Hunting Island before getting to the end of the road to reach the small barrier island called Fripp Island where Marjory Lee grew up. I mention this only to give a glimpse at […]
Claire Caplan – You have to believe. Claire, an only child, was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. Her mother, Leslie Caplan, a professional singer and classically trained, performs with the St. Louis Symphony Chorus and has performed at Carnegie Hall several times. She always encouraged Claire to sing. She sang in a local […]
Memories of Margaritaville Everyone remembers that first Jimmy Buffett song. We all thought Jimmy would live forever. The music and those memories will live forever. Since 2012, I have interviewed over 155 musicians in Key West for my Soul of Key West books. I tried to present interesting facts and stories from all of them. […]
Steve Mellette – cat herder at Key West Musicians Festival Steven Mellette was born in Iowa in 1950 and grew up in the DC suburbs of Bethesda, Maryland. He really wanted to learn drums but his school had purchased new French horns, so he started playing the French horn in the 4th grade. He graduated […]
Ray West – the Pied Piper affect Born in California in 1967, Ray moved around a lot but calls Minneapolis, Minnesota home. He had a more difficult childhood than most, living in foster care for a number of years. He was born Monty Dean West and adopted as Raymond Blydenburg but later discovered the adoption […]
