Music Of A Tropical Nature ... By An Escapee From The Cold Northeast
The baby version of Papa Tommy was born in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn in the late 1940s. As far back as he can recall he loved drawing, but most of all, playing music having started to learn Ukelele at around 6yrs old. (though never inspired by Arthur Godfrey) Long before doo-wop was ever called “doo-wop” the 9 years old Tommy could be found singing and playing guitar on the Brooklyn street corners with all the cool, older guys.
He and his family moved to N.J. when he was at the difficult age of 13 while realizing he reeeallly did not like that whole “going to school thing” . Other than latter year CAD courses he rejected the idea of going to college, choosing instead to learn most everything he wanted from books, asking questions and experimentation. He narrowly escaped high school in Jersey City, N.J. and started working on Wall Street but after 8 yrs of refusing to buy his own pair of "rat sneakers" to run in THAT race he headed to the Adirondacks with his beautiful wife and #1 daughter.
That's when things started to get interesting AND extremely varied. Now, like a “fish out of water” after jumping out of the Wall St tank he managed a fast food restaurant, was a doorman at a night club, a disco DJ as well as a disco dance instructor, a laborer at developing and maintaining 230 miles of snow mobile trail, had a home remodeling and construction business, worked as a draftsman for a huge chemical company (temporarily back to a rat-race environment) then left to start his own architectural drafting/design company.
Fast forward 30 years … NOW here he is in sunny SW Florida as of 2004. Ran from the cold, the gloom, a successful architectural design business and black ice accidents. Family's all here, both daughters, son in law and 2 beautiful grand kiddies so ... “It's all good”. Papa never stopped playing guitar and when his relocated drafting biz tanked and the “ol' nest egg” got scrambled, along with many of his countrymen's, he decided to write music. Though never involved in the "business end" of music he dove into quickly dealing with all the "learning curves" of music relating to software, mixing, mastering, copyrighting etc.
Rather than trying to sell his songs as soon as he wrote them he opted to lay down a foundation of hundreds of songs while he also undertook the task of weeding through the scam artist promoters and publishers seeking to separate the "starry-eyed" from their money. Papa T. feels that “By the grace of God I couldn't be compelled to compromise what I felt was right for me and my family for the sake of material gain” so the resulting laid back attitude that eventually emerged is often reflected in his songs along with countless reasons to leave the cold regions of the US of A and move to the Islands or the Sunshine State.
He and his family moved to N.J. when he was at the difficult age of 13 while realizing he reeeallly did not like that whole “going to school thing” . Other than latter year CAD courses he rejected the idea of going to college, choosing instead to learn most everything he wanted from books, asking questions and experimentation. He narrowly escaped high school in Jersey City, N.J. and started working on Wall Street but after 8 yrs of refusing to buy his own pair of "rat sneakers" to run in THAT race he headed to the Adirondacks with his beautiful wife and #1 daughter.
That's when things started to get interesting AND extremely varied. Now, like a “fish out of water” after jumping out of the Wall St tank he managed a fast food restaurant, was a doorman at a night club, a disco DJ as well as a disco dance instructor, a laborer at developing and maintaining 230 miles of snow mobile trail, had a home remodeling and construction business, worked as a draftsman for a huge chemical company (temporarily back to a rat-race environment) then left to start his own architectural drafting/design company.
Fast forward 30 years … NOW here he is in sunny SW Florida as of 2004. Ran from the cold, the gloom, a successful architectural design business and black ice accidents. Family's all here, both daughters, son in law and 2 beautiful grand kiddies so ... “It's all good”. Papa never stopped playing guitar and when his relocated drafting biz tanked and the “ol' nest egg” got scrambled, along with many of his countrymen's, he decided to write music. Though never involved in the "business end" of music he dove into quickly dealing with all the "learning curves" of music relating to software, mixing, mastering, copyrighting etc.
Rather than trying to sell his songs as soon as he wrote them he opted to lay down a foundation of hundreds of songs while he also undertook the task of weeding through the scam artist promoters and publishers seeking to separate the "starry-eyed" from their money. Papa T. feels that “By the grace of God I couldn't be compelled to compromise what I felt was right for me and my family for the sake of material gain” so the resulting laid back attitude that eventually emerged is often reflected in his songs along with countless reasons to leave the cold regions of the US of A and move to the Islands or the Sunshine State.