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MP3 Gordon Case - Take A Ride
10 MP3 Songs in this album (37:30) !
Related styles: ROCK: Classic Rock, ROCK: Acoustic
Details:
Back in the early 1980s under the St Louis Arch, Gordon Case attended a Beach Boys and Elton John concert opened by the legendary Chuck Berry. After the concert, he spotted Berry heading for his trailer.
“I followed him and motioned to him with the guitar I was carrying,” Case recalls. Berry noted the eager 19-year old and signaled him to come over and chat. They talked about music with Case telling Berry that his music had been an important part of his life as a boy in rural Upstate New York. Case remembers the conclusion of the conversation with Berry asking him:
“So what do you do kid?”
“Well, I like a lot of stuff,” Case told him. “But mostly I like writing and using my own material.”
“That’s as it should be,” Berry assured him. “That’s the only way to be successful in this business.”
Berry’s succinct counsel has remained the touchstone of Cases’s musical life since then. His music reflects the influences of Berry, the country and western music he heard on old records in his boyhood house, the Beatles, and Eagles. Above all, however, it comes out of his own unique material: Case’s multi-faceted life in and out of music as a guitarist-singer who played for a living on the streets, rock band leader, studio musician, factory and farm worker, home builder, and divorced father of three now-grown children.
Today Case is taking his music – a product of his life mosaic -- public. His just published commercial CD – Take A Ride – showcases 10 of dozens of the original pieces he has written over more than 30 years. He wrote one of the pieces -- “It Grieves Me” -- at age 16. He promises to unveil other originals in future CDs.
Case was born on October 23, 1962, in Rome, NY, into a family of musicians. His father was a guitarist and singer and his brother, cousin, niece, and even his own children carry on the family musical tradition today. Case started singing acappella at age 6. At age 9, Case won a $50 1st prize award in a school talent show for performing Roger Miller’s “King of the Road” and Tony Orlando’s “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Old Oak Tree.”
Case started combining his singing with guitar playing when he was 11 after sustaining a broken wrist which inhibited his ability to play sports. “A family friend gave me $20 which I used to purchase a guitar at Sears,” he recounts. “I pretty much learned to play it myself with a little help from television shows -- Johnny Cash and Hee Haw which featured Buck Owens and Roy Clark playing guitar. Friends also offered pointers. But I taught myself for the most part.” Soon Case was making the rounds at fairs and talent shows throughout Upstate New York.
Case started making a living with his guitar and voice at age 14 after giving up on the foster care system into which he was placed during early childhood. “My foster father died and I decided to hit the road,” he explains simply. At that time, he also started writing his own music. As he has continued to do since, he composes music first and then fits lyrics inspired by his life experiences to it.
Until his first marriage at age 23, Case hitchhiked around the country with extended stays in Daytona Beach, St. Louis, and finally California. “I’d sing and play guitar on the streets for food and spare change and work in non-music jobs,” he relates. His non-music background has encompassed a slaughter house, rubber factory, electronics, landscaping, and home building.”
Case’s music has continually evolved with his life changes over the past two decades. During a six month stint in 1993 in the Seattle area, he played in a major music festival. He formed two rock bands – one in Cocoanut Grove, FL, where he lived for seven years until 2000 and another in New Jersey just outside New York City where he lived until 2004. A year in the Nashville’s West End area inspired his style reflected in “Over the Line” – one of the 10 pieces on his Take A Ride CD.
Today Case lives in Southeastern Louisiana near his three grown children. In addition to writing and recording music, he supervises volunteers who come to the coastal bayous to help rebuild and repair housing which was destroyed or sustained major damage in Hurricane Katrina and other major storms over the last few years.
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