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You may think that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.
I believe that there is a plan in place for the innocence of music. I believe that music does overcome all obstacle. I believe that people like Roger Ridley, the original inspiration behind the fabulous organization that is Playing for Change did not live in vain. He shared his wonderful talent and voice for the mere reward of change, but his legacy lies in the words he said when asked why he was not on the big stages of the world: I’m in the Joy Business.

I think joy transcends life and I believe there is a concert stage in the hereafter that features music in eternity. Because really good music never bores. It inspires. That’s why the Main Stage of Rock and Roll Paradise has a new show every time One of the Gifted Ones transpires, and from time to time there is a headliner addition that blows the show out of the park.

WHERE LEGENDS LIVE FOREVER

Every time one of my music heroes passes, I’m slightly torn between sadness and envy. Sadness for all the obvious reasons that come with living and dying and envy because there is another Superstar Jam Concert in Rock and Roll Paradise, that I will not (yet) be able to attend. You may think that’s a strange desire, to go to a concert of dead musicians, but music has been my life since I picked up my first guitar in 1963. I grew up with the tunes of all the GREAT that are now moving on to a new performance platform.

I don’t want to call that place heaven, because I’m not religiously indoctrinated enough to believe that life-after-death has any resemblance with what organized religions want me to believe. Music is and has always been my language and message and all these magnificent performers have contributed more to peace on earth than any religion ever has done.

Many of them started in a time when agents and record companies meant little more than a necessary evil; in a time when contracts were handshakes, without batteries of lawyers to pick words apart and re-formulate them into a language musicians could not understand and consequently got screwed; some so badly that they took their own lives, others died in poverty,

Whether suicide, overdose, medical mishap, accident, natural cause, life’s diseases, these giants left me inspired and indelibly stamped with their music and creativity.

Welcome to the Main Stage