Song 208: Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley

One of the cooler things about playing music live at the same place most weeks is that I've developed friendships with some of the patrons over the years.  Take Kenny for example.  He comes in regularly, loves to request Maybe I'm Amazed or anything by Burton Cummings, and we always have a chat on the break about music. He also has a passion for music and his son plays guitar so we often talk about that.

A few weeks ago, he mentioned he had a surprise for me but hat he was working on it and it wasn't ready yet.  I was curious about what he was up to, until one Saturday night - I went to sit down at the piano and noticed a white sheet concealing a large object on the floor beside my piano stool.  He came over and I lifted up the sheet to reveal a miniature sized grand piano - literally, a baby grand.  He'd spotted it at a thrift store and thought of me and my son, brought it home and refinished the exterior, cleaned the insides, and adjusted the keys so they were playable.  He even stenciled my son's name on the from of the piano.

It's one of the nicest things someone has done for me just out of pure generosity and kindness.  Most of the people I see and interact with while playing live, just pass through with a word here and there, but once in awhile someone does something that's memorable like this.

I'm not sure if if my son will end up being a piano player but he sees me play on mine everyday, and now he has his own to play and jam along on.  He is sixteen months old today and we did a song together on our two pianos.   Here's "Rock Around the Clock".