Well, that takes us up to 2000. In February that year I got a call from Chuck, who was looking for a bass player and drummer to join him and George Joch, a singer/harp player. George had started the Big Eddy Springs Blues Band some years before, in 1993, with some friends at Argonne. Well, I called Ron and he and I started playing with George and Chuck and we hit it off right away. I really loved the material like "Spoonful" and "Sittin' on Top of the World," plus a bunch of other standards that George turned me onto. And I loved the fact he played harp. I hadn't been in a band with a harp player since Dave McGranahan jammed with Suspended Animation in 1982! Early on Dave Jacque made an excellent recording of us, a demo I still enjoy listening to. A couple years later, in about 2003, Chuck thought it would be good to fill out the sound by adding a keyboardist, so I called up Rich and he was in. Rich was already playing with one or two other bands at the time but Big Eddy has never really had a rigorous touring schedule so it worked out. In late 2008 Ron was dealing with some health issues and had to give up drumming for a while, so Chuck brought in his friend, Frank Glorioso. Ron did one last gig with us, my sister Liz's wedding in May 2009, when Frank and George were out of town. That was a great show! It was nice to do a final show with Ron and Chuck's brother-in-law Dennis helped us out on harp and it was fun playing for so many family members and friends in a really good blues band.
Well, good to get all that history out of the way. Now I can talk about the blues and music and hopefully the context will make a little sense!