For your pleasure - My Dad Playing

[Lion Queen]

I thought it a nice idea to start a thread to celebrate my Dads life in music.

My Dad began taking piano lessons aged 13 and after a year of lessons his teacher sadly passed away.  From then on my Dad was self taught.

Aged 16 he was on the Radio, they described him as a 'boy wonder' because he was so good at the piano.

He was invited to play on stage at Dewsbury Empire and got a write up in the local rag.  I have the clipping somewhere, I will dig it out one day and share with you.

Our family was a very musical family and we entertained in old folks homes at Christmas time, my Dad on piano, my uncle on guitar, another uncle sang, my 2 sisters sang and my Mother who was a beautifully talented soprano sang too.  My Grandma played a mean harmonica.  Then there was little me, the youngest of the family, at aged 5 I sang for the first time in front of the old people.

My Dad would earn extra money for the family by playing in pubs and clubs around Yorkshire, he especially enjoyed the pub playing because people would stand at the piano singing along, ah the good old days of singing round the piano.  Long gone are those days but memorable, it's a shame those days are gone.  

I have a few videos of him playing and thought that some of you may like to listen to him play.  He loved to play and entertain the people so to know he can continue to do that even in death is just wonderful for me to know I can share his talent.

I will post one each day I am online.

I do hope you get pleasure out of him.  

As I said earlier, for the last 10 years he was partial blind, eventually going completely blind due to glaucoma but yet he still continued to play.  He wasn't a sight reader of music, he played by ear.

Enjoy