“Musicians are the luckiest people in the world because they get to hang out with other musicians.”
- Campbell Ryga

I played my first nightclub gig at the Smiling Buddha Cabaret on Hastings Street in Vancouver in 1959. I was 14. I went to the rehearsal the afternoon of the gig and the band played through the music for the floor show with some guy who was the “star” of the show.

That night we started off with a dance set and then the band leader counted in the music we had rehearsed that afternoon. The guy we had rehearsed with was nowhere in sight. Instead a very exotically dressed woman came out from behind some curtains and started to dance. She proceeded to take her clothes off until she was down to bra, g-string and high heels ..... and then she took off her wig and her bra ..... surprise! ..... no tits! .... and, of all things, it was the guy from the rehearsal.

I thought it was a comedy act. My career in the music business was launched.

After that auspicious beginning I spent my teenage years playing in R&B bands, rock bands, country bands, dance bands, and jazz bands. I played nightclubs, strip clubs, accompanied floor shows, played for weddings, bowling banquets, dances, bar mitzvahs ..... all the things musicians did back then. I loved it.