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“Music Got Your Back” in so many ways. Can you count the ways? Please tell us how music has helped you get through a tough time. Tell us your story or share an original song that you wrote! Send us your stories and favorite songs, and post on social media about a time when music had your back. Tag @musicgotyourback, and don’t forget to add the hashtags #mgyb and #musicgotyourback.
I wasn’t an actor ?! I wonder what this was about? I got there and someone who seemed to know what was going on – told me to put on these 2 pieces clothing – a shirt and a kind of jacket -and then I left the dressing room only to be told that I put the 2 shirts on in the wrong order – they needed to be reversed -an auspicious beginning to be sure. I was taken to a keyboard that had the 88 keys connected to long pieces of wood operated by 8 stagehands that were moving the keys – if you remember the famous scene in the movie playing the famous 5 note John Williams scene that eventually the Mother Ship made the notes go crazy on their own – Mr. Spielberg asks me to lift my hands an the stage guys were frantically pushing and pulling the wood stems to move the notes – and Steven Spielberg had us do it over and over and over and no one dared say a word as he was figuring out the order and sequence – so I took direction from the great director and helped make First Contact. And by the way – an Actor cannot play a musical instrument in a movie unless he is also a member of the musicians union – so that is how I got to work with Stephen Spielberg.
We started out for Washington DC on July 3 rd leaving in our bus from N’Orleans -17 hrs WASHINGTON MONUMENT and RINGO STARR MIAMI BEACH. Later we arrived and rejoined our current touring partners The Beach Boys, Hank Williams Jr. and Flo and Eddie (from the Turtles) We played in front of 600,000 people in front of Washington Monument July 4, 1984 and were scheduled to play in Miami beach celebration later that same night.
But Hank Williams Jr played 1/2 hr longer that he was allowed and we were delayed. When we landed in Miami beach we were given a police escort from the airport to the 200,000 people waiting on the beach and when the bus parked there was a police-lined path for us to literally run across the sand to the stage – for a brief 5 minutes I got to feel like a Beatle and not 5 minutes later when we arrived at the Beach – none other than Ringo Starr was on stage running late with his set. We ran on the stage and I sat down at the keys and the next thing I knew I was jamming with a Beatle!
All together I played for over 800,000 screaming happy music fans that July 4rth – what a birthday for America.
