Groove And Gratitude with Steve Thoma (Part 1)

At six years old, playing piano duets with his grandmother was the first step toward the music industry, Hollywood, and even Frank Sinatra for musician Steve Thoma. From Detroit roots to a life as a classically trained pianist, arranger, composer, and conductor, Steve serendipitously found himself in “right place, right skill, right attitude” moments you can’t plan.

Steve breaks down what musicianship really is when the lights come on: paying attention, listening harder than you play, and learning how to support other people. We talk about Catholic school training and the high school scholarship that changed everything by turning Steve into the go-to accompanist for choirs and productions.

We also get into the professional world that shaped his standards; truly just the tip of the iceberg. Steve shares why ambition needs boundaries and why humility is the hidden engine behind long-term creative excellence.

Stay tuned for Part Two.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Welcome back to Out of the Blue the Podcast, where real people share extraordinary stories of resilience, creativity, and transformation. I'm your host, Vernon West, joined today by my son and co-host Vernon West III, the brilliant musician and designer behind our show's theme song and logo. Today's guest has lived a life steeped in music. From the soul of Detroit to the bright lights of Hollywood, Steve Thoma is a classically trained pianist, arranger, composer, and conductor whose career has taken him from childhood recitals to performing alongside legends like Doc Severson, Andy Gibb, Glenn Fry, Joe Calker, Fleetwood Mac, and Robin Williams, just to name a few. By age 13, Steve had already earned a full music scholarship. By 16, he was touring the country as musical director for the young Americans. And by his twenties, he was leading the band for the tonight's show icon Doc Severson, conducting 60 musicians a night and soaking up a masterclass in musical excellence. But what really makes Steve's story out of the blue isn't just the resume. It's his evolution. He's learned that mastery isn't just about notes and charts, but about humility listening and the magic that happens when you let the music be. As he puts it, his journey began with humiliation and perspiration, but ultimately led to inspiration. And that's the heart of what we celebrate here on Out of the Blue. So let's dive into the rhythm, the stories, and the wisdom of a life lived in Groove and Gratitude. Good afternoon, Steve, and welcome to Out of the Blue the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

Thank you, Vernon. I think I'm going to name my next album Groove and Gratitude.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Hey. Sounds good to me. It's a pretty good name. But um works. Yeah, it works.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Thanks for thanks for coming on, man. Oh, my pleasure. So it's fun to sit and talk about me.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Well, you get to do that. This whole episode. It's all about Steve. And you know what? It's really good.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

I love what you guys are doing, you know, presenting these stories of people that have, you know, like like most folks on the planet, you know, facing situations that, you know, we've all faced situations that we felt we were in a real dilemma where no, you know, there didn't seem to be a possible great outcome from it. But um, I love that you guys are focusing on that and and giving people the chance to tell their story about how their resilience carried them through and the tools they've utilized. And it doesn't always work out on the first try or the or the 14th, you know.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

But I think when it with even when it doesn't work out right away, it seems like it will have an impact later because you don't you know we we do have to embrace the dark side of life if we don't want to if we want to get to the light, you know. You have to you have to learn from it. And I think that's what out of the blue is.

Resilience And Facing The Dark

SPEAKER_03 3:25

Along those lines, we have to not be afraid to find out the dark side of ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

Take the deep dive and and not be afraid to hear the truth about ourselves.

Detroit Roots And First Duets

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Right. That's so much of a big part of this learning procedure, you know. But anyway, where do we start, Steve? You've got an unbelievably cr incredible resume and life. But it all started when you were like three, tinkling away in the piano or something, five.

SPEAKER_03 3:53

Yeah, I was raised by my grandparents outside of Detroit, and um my grandmother was a pianist, and she had played in what were used to be called speakeasies during Prohibition. And um she was she was a great stride piano player, she had big long fingers, and she was very musical and very joyful, and and uh, you know, she there was a piano in the house, and I would hear her play, and I said, I want to play too. And anyway, when I was about six, she got a book of duets, and we started playing duets together. I was finally, you know, she put me in a piano class rather than attempting to teach me on her own. And uh it was in Detroit, so I don't know how I wound up in this class. It was me and 13 black kids, African American kids. So I was the odd man out, but I had a crush on one of the girls. Her name was Robin, and she always had her hair in pigtails, and I thought that was super special. So I was more interested in bringing a kiss on Robin than playing piano, but I did pay attention.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

John Lennon, that thing said, when some like Dick Cavan asked him, so why did you do music? He says, To get a little bit extra, Dave. What else?

SPEAKER_03 5:05

You know, yeah. Any musician that tells you otherwise is not has not looked at the dark truth within himself yet.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

It's so true. Even in high school for me, my yeah, my best friend and I started playing music, and our slogan was why? Because girls love it. Like it was really just that simple.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

Oh, it's very I mean, girls were talking to me, walking up to me, talking to me. I didn't have to initiate conversations. And I I would have been terrified if I had had had to do that on my own, but I was the piano player for all the choirs, and I I was always the one playing, you know.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Yeah, and it speaks to something else about how music music becomes a voice for musicians to express themselves and be confident, like you know.

SPEAKER_03 5:51

I think when we're playing our instrument and when we're in our groove, as Brendan mentioned earlier, that's when we're most ourselves. That's when I feel most me. And that was what people seem to respond to when the bands I put together um would would perform. The the the one of the draws would be that they were intrigued by what was going on between the musicians, which was clearly visible in the in the in the combos that I put together. I was always looking for guys that really had a soulful thing, and and that was that's what was obvious to me right away. Some musicians don't have it. They may be a competent guitar player or a competent horn player, but they don't they don't have that other thing that it's like uh Ray Charles when they asked him what was soul, he said, Well, if I gotta explain it to you, you won't understand. There's this this thing that certain people have when it comes to music that translates and permeates the masses. They don't even know what they're digging about it, but they know they dig it. And they'll do crazy stuff to hear it, you know, yeah, standing in lines, camping out on the sidewalk to get tickets for front. I mean, you know, we've seen fans do crazy stuff um behind their love for music and their love for the artists. So anyway, I feel most myself when I'm communicating through the piano.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

So you you got this, you're going to that class in Detroit, and then what what happened next?

SPEAKER_03 7:26

And then when I was uh five, a little over five, my grandfather, my grandparents decided to move to California. They had a friend that had moved here and he really liked it. He had a job opportunity for my grandfather, who was a uh a big equipment operator, what's called an operating engineer. And prior to that, he'd been one of the original Teamsters in Detroit that helped form that union uh along with Jimmy Hoffa and Frank Fitzsimmons. So there were three celebrities in our house uh John Kennedy, Pope Paul the XXIII, and Jimmy Hoffa. So those were like the dudes that I grew up uh hearing about and how you know how instrumental they were and influential they were in the world. And uh Jimmy Hoffa, though, fell out of favor because when I was about maybe 10 or 11, my grandfather started trash talking him because he had turned into all the things that he was fighting.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Right, right. I know the story. I know the story.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

But so then after that moved to California, they put me in Catholic school. Um we moved here in a bus. That's what I wanted to tell you. That's why I brought up the Teamster thing. My grandfather bought a bus, tore out all the seats except for the first two benches, and that was our moving van. I mean, it was like worse than the Beverly Hillbillies. And they threw all their stuff, we threw all our stuff in the in that bus. My grandfather drove the bus and I rode with him, and my grandmother drove a 1956 Cadillac that they had purchased and brought along and her my grandfather's mother, who was in her 80s and you know, senile, she rode with my grandmother for the drive from Detroit. So that was an arduous journey, to say the least. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

There's a song there somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 9:18

So we made the trip here. My grandfather had the bus sold to a bus company. What a big thing. I mean, he was a smart guy.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

What a smart dude.

SPEAKER_03 9:27

Industrious. Anyway, uh, we enrolled me right away. I went to kindergarten at a public school, which was a good experience. I liked school, I liked learning, and uh, and then they put me in uh in Catholic school, and that's really where my music education began in earnest because they had a piano teacher on staff at the school. They gave her a classroom and had two pianos in it, and uh, you could actually leave, you could take lessons after school, or if she had too many students, you could actually leave class and go take a piano lesson.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Well, I gotta love it.

SPEAKER_03 10:03

So I tell people I started playing when I was three, but I didn't get serious about it until I was seven. And I got serious about it with Mrs. Campbell, who was probably five foot eleven, another woman, big long finger. She just she would grab 47 notes at once. Yeah. She was a very dynamic player.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

My aunt was like that. She was the one with the upright that played all the honky tonks, and she did a lot of stuff. And I would when we would go over her house, she would just play all day long, and I would get on the piano with her. But no, I wasn't so fortunate as to have um you know her get me a lesson, so that would have been wonderful. But um, one of my earliest pictures, I'll show it to you sometime, is me sitting at a little grand baby grand, you know, like a real baby piano, and I got a little tie and there's a candelabra on the piano. Because they really loved me to piano, they wanted me to play piano, but I ended up I ended up drifting off to trumpet. But go ahead, but good. And then they got serious, and I was sad.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

Yeah, I mean, and and what was cool about Mrs. Campbell is that there were two things cool about her. Uh, I've discovered that her husband was the organist at the church.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Whoa.

SPEAKER_03 11:11

So across the street from my elementary school, which was grades one through eight, was our church, and next to that was the rectory where all the priests lived. And back then there were multiple priests in our parish. And Theodore Campbell, her husband, was the church organist. So I started taking lessons from him, and right after I started taking lessons, organ lessons from him, and piano from her, they called my grandparents and they said, We're uh we're not gonna charge anymore for Stephen. They called me Stephen, which I legally changed my name to Steve, partially because of that. Uh, they said, We're not gonna charge for Stephen's lessons, and my grandmother thought that I was getting fired as a student.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:55

She goes, Well, what did he do wrong? She goes, No, no, you didn't do anything wrong. We aren't gonna charge you because he's so motivated and so talented, we're not gonna charge.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

He we wish we had 10 more like him that that practice and show up prepared.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

That's really good.

SPEAKER_03 12:12

So, and that that I credit my grandfather for teaching me how to pay attention. Because he was always showing me how to fix stuff, and you know, we worked with we changed transmissions and clutches, we were always working on our old beat-up cars. Um, but he taught me how to pay attention because he used to say, I'm gonna show you how to do this one time, and he wasn't kidding.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Yeah, that's what you've got to pay attention when they say that, right?

SPEAKER_03 12:36

Right. So, anyway, that was a great relationship with me and and uh Mrs. Campbell and Mr. Campbell. They and then I started subbing for him when I was about 10, playing funerals and weddings, and also this was in the 60s, so it was like the beginning of guitar masses. That that was a good experience for me, taking lessons from them. And I studied with them, and that that led me down the path of being pretty serious about music.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

I mean, that's a foundation, man. That's a beautiful foundation. So go ahead, more.

High School Scholarship And A Mentor

SPEAKER_03 13:05

Well, and I I uh enrolled in high school and I was very torn about high school because there was a high school that had this incredible vocational program where they teach you drafting and engineering and auto mechanics, and and I but it was several, it was about 30 miles away, which in LA traffic even back then was was a nightmare. Anyway, I went to a like uh an invitation day there to check it out, and I was really excited to go learn all these things, mechanics and drafting and all of that, but it was an all-boys school, and all of the Catholic high schools except for two were all boys or all girls. And there was a high school in Burbank that was a co-ed Catholic high school, but the drawback was it was the poorest school in the whole diocese. It was a very, very poor school. They did not have you know great basketball and football teams or baseball teams. Uh, they didn't have a great rep in that way, but they had a really good reputation in terms of their academics. And the kicker for me was there was another family, the inciso family, they had five or six kids, and two of their kids, I think they were twins or within a year of each other, they were going to school there, so I had a ride. So that's I think that's why I wound up going there. And the very first day of school, you know, they give you your classes when you show up that first day back then, and one of the classes was music, like music uh appreciation.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

So I show up for the class, and uh I'm sitting in the back because I'm thinking, uh, what do I need to learn about music appreciation?

SPEAKER_00 14:47

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 14:47

So I'm thinking this is gonna be an easy A for me. And the teacher said, uh, the teacher was a uh young, good-looking, and very dynamic woman named Suzanne Keithley. And uh I'll tell you more about her uh later, but she asked anybody, does anybody play an instrument in here? And you know, about 15 hands went up out of about 40 kids, 30 kids. And she goes, Oh, great. Uh, what do you play? Everybody play guitar or drums. Everybody. I was the last guy because I was in the she goes, What are you playing? I said, Piano. And she goes, Oh, really? What kind of music do you play? And I said, Oh, you know, Bach, Chopin, Mozart, Haydn, Jchakowski. She's like, Really? I said, Yeah. She goes, So you read music? I said, Yeah, I didn't know any other way to make music other than reading it at that moment, you know. I'm like, Yeah, I read music. She goes, Can you come to my office after class today? And I said, Sure. So I go to her office, which is like a closet, and it was so small that they said they told her you can either have a desk or a piano, a spin-et piano. She goes, I need the piano. So there was a piano. There's literally room for me and her sitting next to me. That was her office. Anyway, I played all the stuff she put in front of me, and she's like, Okay, I'm gonna offer you a scholarship to this school. Um, the the tuition is I don't know what it was like, I think it was$1,200 a year. You're not gonna have to pay any tuition, but you have to play piano for the choir. I have two choirs, I have a mixed chorus, and then I have some another choir, which was like for the more capable singers. It's a smaller ensemble, and and she goes, and we do a musical once a year. And I'm like, okay, sure. I had no idea. My grandparents were greatly relieved because that twelve hundred dollars a year was a big deal to them.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Absolutely a lot of money.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

So Suzanne was a huge inspiration in my life. She taught me how to do so much, she taught me how to produce shows, she taught me how to produce events, she taught me how to accompany singers. I mean, I a whole new world opened up for me because I was all I was like a little classical nerd at that at that point. And what's really weird is that a couple years prior to going to high school, I competed in this LA diocese piano competition. They went to a lot of the schools, any school that had piano in their curriculum got to participate in this competition, and they sent three nuns to adjudicate all of the musicians. And I won this over this contest for this entire archdiocese of Los Angeles. And the quirky part was one of the nuns came up to me and said, She goes, Listen, you are special, and you keep playing because the girls are gonna really want to hang out with you. And I looked at her, she was really old, like maybe 30. She called this 10-year-old kid this, right? And I'm looking at her like, what? So, but it was it made my high school experience super enjoyable because I think mainly because everybody knew me, because there was all the people singing, but one musician. We didn't have the budget for anything else. But and speaking of budget, I I wanted to tell you this. When Suzanne offered me that scholarship, she didn't have the authority to do that. She had to go to the principal who was about four foot eight and a friggin' tornado. This this nun was. I got to be really close with her, but she scared everybody. And she literally wasn't even five feet tall. Suzanne went to her, Sister Catherine, and said, Listen, I I found this piano player. This guy's this guy, I've been praying for this, and this God put this kid on my class, and the freaking kid can play anything. I need you to pay for his tuition. She's like, We're not gonna pay for his tuition. She goes, Well, then I quit.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Wow.

Learning To Accompany And Lead

SPEAKER_03 18:44

And so whatever happened after that, she made it work. And I got a scholarship for all four years that I was there. So, anyway, that was a great experience. It gave me, it introduced me to pop playing popular music, which was a totally different vibe and a totally different set of skills. It taught me how to accompany singers because we also had a lot of soloists that would perform during those shows, and I learned how to. I grew up playing the melodies for songs, you know what I mean? Like uh I was the lead voice in the band, so I'd play the melody. But I had to stay away from the melody when I was accompanying singers. And I started listening to people like Bert Bacharok and um Frank Strazeri was a great jazz pianist here in LA. He accompanied a lot of great singers like Sarah Bond, and I listened to those records about how these guys accompany a singer. I listened to a lot of sonatra records because a lot of his stuff had just, you know, call a voce, piano and voice, just so I started studying that. I became aware, oh, there's other functions that you can have as a musician. I started learning that musician is not just ripping through Bach, you know, inventions and fugues or Chopin Waltz's. It's there's a whole nother world out there. And she turned me out of that.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Plus, she's kind of like being a being like a painter in a way, right?

SPEAKER_03 20:03

Yeah, yeah. Different. Are you painting with oils? Are you painting with uh with crayons? Are you painting with pencils? Are you painting with charcoal?

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Yeah, and when you're back in a singer, you know, you learn to lay out, like you said, not hit the melodies, then you learn how to compliment them. That's a cool what an education must be.

Vegas Lessons And Studying Sinatra

SPEAKER_03 20:20

Sometimes you're leading them, sometimes they're leading you. And I and then that also helped me when I got my first job conducting, because I again I knew how to pay attention, I knew how to listen, I knew how to kind of think about where the singer was going. And many years later, when I got introduced to Frank Sinatra, I never got to work with him, but I I got to hang out with him and went to many of his shows in Las Vegas because I was working there with Doc at the time, and everybody knew me because I was only 22 and I was like the young gun. So everybody knew who I was, and I got access to a lot of shows for no charge, just they let me in to watch and meet the artists. But Sinatra was the most unpredictable singer I ever saw. But his piano player, uh Bill, I can't remember his name now, he's with him forever. Anyway, Bill was genius at Bill Miller.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Bill Miller.

SPEAKER_03 21:10

Bill Miller uh was his uh conductor, musical director, and that's like that's the job I wanted. I wanted Bill Miller's job. So that's what I started studying. I listened to those records, I'd listen, I watched every Sinatra TV special that he ever had, which was very educational. And I'm glad I got to be around that era of not only music, but also Vegas. Because that's when the mob was still running it, and musicians were treated, entertainers were treated like royalty. It was a it was a beautiful time to be a musician or an entertainer.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Wow.

The Young Americans Gig Out Of Nowhere

SPEAKER_03 21:41

So I got exposed to that very young and got in that circle of professionals, and it was a it was a great time uh, you know, after high school. I left high school to do that tour with the young Americans, which was a tour of one nighters, all like community concerts, like when people would buy season tickets. They'd get uh Vicky Lawrence one night, and and a month later they'd get the Young Americans, and after that they'd get Robert Goulet. You know, they'd get these different entertainers come through.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Did they tour like high schools and stuff?

SPEAKER_03 22:13

No, they toured community concerts.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Community concerts, because I think I saw something called the Young Americans. Well, they was at a concert, but we would we were all brought in from different schools and from an auditorium.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

Right. So uh I I joined that group in uh 1972. Well, I gotta tell you that story, how that happened. The Young Americans, I think it was 1968, they somebody did a documentary about them. It was started in Michigan by a little guy named Milton Anderson. He was about five feet tall, but a musical genius and a great producer. I learned a lot from Milton. Um but they won the when the when the documentary won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, that kind of catapulted them into the public consciousness. And they did, you know, like the Merv Griffin show and they did Mike Douglas and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

And what was what kind of show was that what kind of show was it like?

SPEAKER_03 23:09

I mean it was it was pretty much I used to call it flag waving, you know. They it was very patriotic. There was always like a patriotic section. Like uh the show that I did with them was uh we had a medley from 70s from uh 76 Drombones. What show is that?

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Um, right, right, right. Uh the Music Man.

SPEAKER_03 23:28

Uh Music Man, yeah, sorry. We did a medley from that, we did a medley from Oklahoma, we did a medley from something else. Um but the opening was genius. Milton just had one singer walk out and start singing a cappella, just in what they used to call a Sinatra spot, you know, the overhead spot.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_03 23:48

And then another singer would walk out and start singing two-part harmony, and then the 30 singers and dancers wound up coming out onto the stage during that opening number. And that audience was mesmerized. I bet because there was very little going on, it was so beautifully simple and elegant.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

I don't think this is an accident, man. I definitely saw the young Americans in 1972. Did you come to the Boston area? Because I don't know. Yes, of course. Yeah, I saw it. What do we tell you? When I saw the Young Americans, I was so jealous. Because I was I was in my band days. I just started my band and I was playing around New England high schools, leaving every weekend to do the road. And when I came to see the show, I mean I said, Oh, what's this gonna be crappy? You know, I think it's gonna be hokey or whatever. And I'm like, oh my god, this is pro, this is really well done. And the the talent was really great. I mean, it really was done well. The lighting, everything, it did a great job.

SPEAKER_03 24:47

Yeah, it was a the the rock the lighting director was a rock guy, a rock, you know. And this is also in the context of the concert business, it was very early in the whole concept of concerts and done with real concert sound and concert lighting. But the the caliber of musicianship and performance ability in that group was extremely high. Yeah, it was a six-piece band. We played in the pit. No, we played upstage and we played behind a scrim.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Right.

SPEAKER_03 25:20

But there were a few numbers in the show where they had a Revox reel to reel with strings and horns. And there was a conductor in the pit with a penlight flashlight giving me the count off, and I had to make sure that band stayed in line with that tape recording.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Oh yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:40

So fortunately, we never had a disaster, uh, and that band was super competent. I mean, the music first of all, I have to tell you this. I was 16 years old when I did that tour. Everybody else in that group was 18 and older. Because what they did was to find members, like I said, Milton started the group in in uh Michigan, but he opened an LA office when they won the Academy Award because he knew that he wanted to monetize the group. So he started an LA company. They had their Michigan company, uh, which performed at Interloken every summer. That was kind of the feather in their cap. And uh and then they came to LA and had a company here. So to get the LA company, he had to hold auditions. What they did for their touring company was they sent a postcard to every high school in the United States uh inviting them to send two singers. So thousands of singers made their way to Los Angeles to audition for the young Americans to sing and dance for free.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 26:47

And two girls from my high school in choir that I that I grew up with in high school uh decided to they wanted to audition for it. And they asked me if I would come play for their audition. I go, sure. So, and it was over on the west side of Los Angeles, which for us back then that was like a big deal. Oh, we're going over to the west side. So we go over to the west side of Culver City to this warehouse, and this warehouse was probably six or seven thousand square feet of just open space, and there was a piano in there, and I play for them, and they each did uh two songs, and then this little guy said, Thank you very much, and we all get up to walk out, and he goes, No, hang on, Mr. Piano Player, can you wait a minute? Like, okay. He goes, Do you read music? I said, Yeah. And he goes, What kind of music do you read? Bach, Chopin, Mozart, I he's like, Okay, uh, play me, uh, can you play me uh Boogie Woogie? So I, you know, I start ratting aloud some boogie woogie things.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

The old boogie woogie, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:53

Yeah, he says, Okay, can you play uh uh can you play a waltz? And I said, Well, yeah, I know all the Chopin waltz. He goes, No, don't play any Chopin, just play me a waltz. So I played, I think I played uh uh charade. He goes, I didn't say a jazz waltz. I go, Oh, I don't know. I I I like the jazz waltz. He goes, Okay. So he rattled up some a couple other styles and he goes, he goes, Do you want a gig? And I'm like, I don't even know what a gig was. I'm like, what's a gig?

SPEAKER_01 28:31

That's a word.

SPEAKER_03 28:33

He says, Well, I think you'd be, I think you, oh, and he said, 'You have you ever played with other musicians?' I go, 'Yeah, I got a band, it's a five-piece band, you know, drums, bass, guitar, and two trumpets.' I said, I play trumpet too. And he goes, Oh, okay. Uh, that's your band. I go, Yeah, I started it when I was 12. And he's like, Okay, so he goes, So I think you might be the right guy to be our band leader. I'm like, sounds great. How much does the game pay?

SPEAKER_00 29:01

Now that's what I call out of the blue, man. That's something.

SPEAKER_03 29:04

Totally. Right. I mean when they're doing a favor, right? Right. He goes, 20 bucks a week.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

And I that's not a lot of money, but I go, that doesn't buy a lot.

Mentors, Sobriety, And Meeting Frank

SPEAKER_03 29:14

He goes, well, really, all you need to buy is toothpaste. He goes, he goes, well, we pay for everything else. So um I said, okay, uh, all right, well, let me talk to my grandparents. Your grandparents, what do they have to do with it? So, well, that's who I live with. He's like, tell me about that. I'm like, that's a long story. So he goes, All right, well, he goes, stick around, go to the front office, talk to so-and-so, give them your info. So that's what led to that. And that that band turned out to be I was I I'm still in touch with two people from that, or one person from that outfit from that band, who happened to be Alviola's son. Alveola was a legendary jazz guitarist who I know.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Of course I know Alviola.

SPEAKER_03 29:59

So Paige Kavanaugh, he was in the Paige Kavanaugh trio originally, and then from there he went and was in Sinatra's band for about 40 years. And he played on Strangers in the Night, and he he also played on a thousand movie soundtracks. He was an A-Call studio guy, and he played on the Godfather soundtrack and played like all the mandolin and anyway. Brilliant guy, and he became a mentor to me also. Like out of the blue, I meet his son, I meet Al, and Al sees okay, here's a kid who's on the ball. He's gonna save my son because his son was already a heavy drinker.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

I've already seen it.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

All right, and I was like, I wanted nothing to do with drugs or alcohol. I had ambition, man. I wasn't gonna let anything get in the way of that. And I'd heard all these horror stories about musicians who died from drug overdoses or from alcoholism, or they got shot by somebody's husband. I'm like, I'm not going down that path. So Al saw in me as somebody that you know could help his son get on track. So unfortunately, Jeff, his son played with me for a couple of years as I started getting these little musical director gigs in LA. But he went on to be a movie extra and went on to drink himself into a really bad place, but he he got clean and sober, and he's been clean and sober forever now. That's beautiful. And we're still friends, we're golf partners, we play golf all the time.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_03 31:21

And he's in Spain right now. He called me from Spain, he's in Spain competing in the worldwide, the world uh Iron Man competition. He's a tri-athlete. Like the guy's a beast.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Oh bet.

SPEAKER_03 31:34

And he's in incredible shape. He's in better shape than we were at 18. And uh he's been competing all over the world, so that's an exciting thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Friggin' beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 31:43

Yeah. So we stayed in touch. His dad was really beautiful and kind to me and introduced me to Sinatra and told everybody about you. You gotta check out this kid, Toma. He's always frank.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

I never I never I don't know anybody that Mid Frank Sinatra. How was he like? What was he like?

SPEAKER_03 31:58

He's like, hey kid, I heard I've been hearing about you. What what's what was your favorite song tonight when he did a set? I went to his show and I go, oh, your version of of uh yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

That makes sense, right?

SPEAKER_03 32:13

Amazing. And he also did uh All by Myself.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh boy.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

Incredible orchestration.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

I mean, just Oh wow, that must have been phenomenal.

SPEAKER_03 32:26

Yeah, he did a lot of modern tunes in a show then. Like he he didn't want to be he was always up to date.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

I mean all by myself, the guy from the Raspberries. Um I saw the Raspberries in the little club when I was still in my team, well, playing my bands. We went and saw them and they blew me the frick away.

SPEAKER_03 32:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

I couldn't believe how good they were.

SPEAKER_03 32:46

They were well his version of those tunes was something else.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

And I can imagine that because uh that's an awesome song for a good vocalist, you know. And it's Frank's phrasing, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

His phrasing is un totally unique.

How To Share Your Story

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Yeah, and it's untouchable. It's like nobody's he's the best at it. So keep going. Are you getting your story? I want to hear your story when when things made of changed that a little met you met the face of your dark side one day, I bet. Out of the blue the podcast. Hosted by me, Vernon West. Co-hosted by Vernon West III, edited by Joe Gallo. Music and logo by Vernon West III. Have an out-of-the-blue story of your own you'd like to share? Reach us at info at out of the blue hyphen the podcast.org. Subscribe to Out of the Blue on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And on our website, out of the blue-thepodcast.org.