Sometime in the winter of 1981 we met in our home town of Moline, Illinois. This area is also known as the Quad-Cities.  Davenport, Iowa is across the bridge. I was a maintenance worker at Augustana College a mid size liberal arts college in Rock Island. On a cold winter evening I was working security for one of the many concerts hosted by the college. A famous group known as "Dixie Dregs" were performing that evening, a jazz/rock fusion band. They were excellent! Julie attended the show and we met each other through mutual friends.

After the show we left and went to a party in my neighborhood. Anyway one thing led to another and we ended up at my apartment. I had a lot of keyboard gear lying around. At that time Julie was attending community college studying classical piano and also teaching piano lessons at a local music store. Well we had a lot in common with our interest in music. My exposure to music was through playing in local bands around the area. Having had a few piano lessons as a kid, I developed some, mostly improvisational, skills with my keyboard of choice being a Hammond organ. Julie was heavily into Chopin and Rachmaninoff.  The mystery was somewhat mutual.  Mine of her extraordinary dedication to pursue such a discipline as Rachmaninoff and hers of how I was able to create interesting music hardly knowing what I was doing and actually be getting paid for it. So this began our relationship together.

Julie's interest in music goes back to her childhood as mine does. She played trumpet in marching band through high school and still played the trumpet as part of a college jazz ensemble. But her main interest turned towards the piano in college. My playing began as a teenager when I played with a number of garage rock bands in high school. Our main objective was to recreate the pop songs of the day and to play at local dances,  which we did a few times. After high school I continued to pursue this, at least as a hobby. Trying different things out and partying mostly. Some time after high school I met a guitarist/singer named Steve Svec.  Steve enjoyed music a lot but was more determined than I to get busy and do gigs. Anyway through Steve and one of his bands called "Sweet Chops" I got a chance to actually get out of the garage. My first gig with that band was at a place called "Mellow Tap". We became the house band and played 3 nights a week. Steve shared vocals with a bass player Fran and they were very good. I cranked up my Hammond and turned up the Leslie speaker and basically learned their songs on the job. Kind of like the band "Grateful Dead" we never knew how the night would go and what song we might be doing next.  Sometimes it was a work of art and other times kind of a train wreck but it was great fun. We played covers by Doobie Bros, Allman Bros, Eagles, etc. to a sometimes rowdy crowd and also branched out to other engagements. Steve and his wife are good friends of ours today and we visit them whenever we make it home. Steve has maintained a successful career in the business through the years and to this day. We worked together in several bands in the 70's. Steve is now playing with his band "Blue Collar Band" a popular Quad-Cities band that Steve has been with for many years. Check out their web site and buy their CD!

Sometime in the 70's we met a singer who, to protect the innocent, shall remain nameless. This fellow became our good friend and our lead singer. With his great singing voice and stage personality he became very popular in the Quad-Cities. This put our band in the spotlight and allowed us to stay busy. The band went through various personnel changes and names over our time together. It was with this singer and fellows musicians Steve, Rich Kravens (drums) Roger Reinke (bass), that I was working when I met Julie. Rich and Roger are two friends I have known many years. "Circuit" was the name we used. This was meant to be an offshoot from a previous version known as "Short Circuit."

Julie also had an interest in getting on stage and joined a band with 5 other local players, She taught herself to play bass guitar and shared bass and keyboard duties with a well known local piano player named Ray Talley. The band had a girl drummer with a good singing voice and was fronted by Brenda Kutzman (Bree Henry) who was also a very good and soulful young singer in the area. It was at this time that Julie began singing harmony vocals and it was immediately evident that she had a strong singing voice. "Geneva" became popular with some clubs in the area and were on their way. Playing music like Steely Dan, Paul McCartney, Fleetwood Mac, etc.

Well this was the story of our lives right then. But change is always imminent, as we are all often reminded.  One winter evening in 1981 me and my fellow band mates met at one of the clubs where we had played to pickup our gear. Our lead singer did not show up. We were kind of upset with him but went ahead and loaded the trucks and left. Later that evening while watching the late news we saw our lead singer in the lead story. It seems he had another life we did not know about. That of a violent criminal.  To make a long story short,  he ended up getting a long sentence. And our band made the front page of the local news. Not quite the fame we were looking for. It was shortly after that, we dissolved the band. I must say that this fellow had us all fooled. We all knew him as a nice guy, whom the girls loved and he had a lovely wife and beautiful daughter. He seemed to have the talent to possibly make it big. To this day I wonder what could have been and how he was able to keep this side of his life hidden from everyone. Rich and Roger have continued to pursue music over the years as well. On one of our summer trips home we had a chance to see one of Rich's bands "Chopper Kane" play at the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival. We were given back stage passes and got to meet "Hank Ballard and the Midnighters" and the late "Junior Wells." Check out Rich and Rogers latest band.

It was shortly after that, that Julie's band "Geneva" made the decision to change personnel. And at that point Steve and I joined up. Steve taking the place of the former lead guitarist. I bringing my keyboards in giving us three keyboard players. I handled mostly Hammond organ and Moog synthesizer, Ray being the strongest piano player of the three of us, handled a lot of the piano work. We also incorporated more orchestration via Ray's Arp Quartet keyboard, a voltage control string synthesizer. Julie played all of the various keyboards and switched off with Ray on Bass guitar.

Note; This was before the era of digital design. Therefore we had to use, what would now be considered obsolete keyboard equipment, to build orchestration. Part of the job of any keyboard player of the day was the manipulation of many voltage control parameters via the synthesizer control panel to achieve whatever sound you were looking for. Being analog in origination this did not allow you to store any settings,  IE these keyboards contained no memory. Tuning was a chore also at times due to the instability of voltage control oscillators. Julie and I purchased a Helpenstill Roadmaster piano, This was a real piano built into a flight case. This piano was heavy and required tuning for most every performance. Again this was the pre-digital age when if you wanted a real piano sound you had to get something close to a real piano. Likewise with the Hammond organ. I took on the job of tuning the piano. We started to resemble a traveling circus in size but we all handled the albatross pretty well.

Bree, Steve, and drummer Cindy handled lead vocals and everyone worked on back up vocals. Julie excelled as a harmony vocalist but still did not attempt lead. Mike Henry (Bree's husband) handled production and management for the band completing the lineup for "Geneva" Eventually Cindy, the drummer resigned for other career pursuits, at which time we recruited a well known local drummer "Bob Huether." Bobby was a real asset and brought many years of experience with local bands on board. One important note, Ray had an alto sax that he did not know how to play and presented it to Julie to play around with and see if she could figure it out!

We went out and stayed pretty busy with clubs and events for the next year and a half. One of the highlights of that venture was performing as opening act for the band "Diesel" from Holland. At the time Diesel was in the Top 40 with there hit "Sausalito Summer Nights" giving us a chance to play in front of a sold out crowd at the Coliseum in Davenport, Iowa.  It went well. The band from Holland came over to our house in Moline after the show. In between "Diesel" doing an interview with the local paper and munching we had a chance to share a beer and conversation with these guys, at least the ones that spoke English. Their (tour manager) saw to it that the band did not stay late and off they went to complete a busy tour of the USA and eventually back to Holland. It was a real special night.

The band "Geneva" eventually ran its course and due to the typical problems of getting along in a complicated business we all went our separate ways. It was at this time that Julie and I decided to try building our own band. Thus "Gypsy" was born. Holding auditions for musicians we eventually ended up with a 6 piece band. Several talented players came and went. The band was fronted for a while by an talented young singer Cathy Hollanbeck, whom had already gained a lot of notice in the area with her powerful singing voice. During this time Julie and I were starting to realize that we had grown weary of the Midwest with its long winters and were starting to think about leaving the Quad-Cities. This rendition of "Gypsy" played clubs for a while and eventually we disbanded for whatever reason. I found Cathy thru a web search performing with her band "Chunkster." Also Dan Foster plays bass with the band. Click on their link and tell them we said hi.

Looking back I think the winters were only part of our compulsion to leave. Julie and I wanted this music business to be our life and we found it nearly impossible to do in a town like the Quad-Cities. Being a blue collar manufacturing town, most of the available engagements would be weekends in local bars. The local economy also suffered a large downturn in the eighties with a lot of layoffs and plant closings. The competition for the couple of nights of work was overwhelming. We did alright but we both knew we wanted more. So we started saving our pennies with the ultimate goal of leaving. Our mindset then became anything we could do for a dollar to save for our departure.

I got a call from a local guitarist/singer Ross Rudsell whom I knew from grade school and he was putting together a little band at a honky-tonk in the town of Silvis, "The Mainliner". Ross had been a very steady performer in the area for many years with his band "Free Wheelin" and I knew he was talented. So I jumped on with Ross and went to the bank every Monday morning with my little pay check to save for leaving town. In the meantime Julie auditioned with another local established act "The Harold White Show" She got the chance to sing some lead and perform with some great players. The main objective was the pay check. Anyway I lasted close to a year with the band in Silvis and Julie quit the "Harold White Show" not too far into it. While I was playing with my band Julie worked on several projects including writing and recording. On one occasion she had the offer for some studio time at Chicago's Solid Sound recording studio. Along with her dad and a local guitarist they headed to Chicago and wrote a song on the way. I stayed and went to my gig as usual to make the money. It was at this time that Julie's dad Bob Andrew, decided to put together a small demo studio which he did and called it Key Recording Studio. For those of you who have heard our recordings, most of them were recorded at Key Recording. We married in the fall of 1985 with our plan to leave as soon as we could build up some traveling money.

The next and final leg of our Midwest music life came when we decided to reform our band "Gypsy". With my band having run its course at "The Mainliner." I was ready to try something different again. So we rebuilt Gypsy with all new players. This time handling lead guitar Ronny Wilson, drums Bob Tague, and bass John Lacefield. All seasoned local players. This time we added the lead vocalist Phyllis Wethington. Phyllis a popular young singer in the Quad-Cities even then, has made quite a name for herself over the years. Also we had a stint for a while with Bob Huether on drums, Dan Foster on bass, and Orie Liberio on lead guitar/vocal.

"GYPSY 1986" PLAYING LIVE AT THE UNDERGROUND CAVERN CLUB IN ROCK ISLAND, ILL.

This brings us to our departure from the Quad Cities. We finished out what we could with Gypsy and made our final departure midsummer 1986.

Our time in the Midwest had a lot of twists and turns that I did not mention here but this is the main route it took. We had the opportunity to work with many local players and singers while in the Quad-Cities and have the utmost respect for all of them. Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprising at all, most of them have continued to play all these years, along with raising families and advancing other day careers. I will include links to any of them I can find. Please click on the above links and visit their web pages.