I was formerly a trumpet player. I did my Bachelor’s Degree at The University of Southern California and my Masters at Arizona State. I also did some arranging, conducting, teaching, producing and contracting.

I played Principal Trumpet in the Orange County Symphony (now the Pacific Symphony) and the Phoenix Symphony as well as a few others. I briefly went out on the road playing lead trumpet with Aretha Franklin, Lou Rawls and a few others. I went out conducting for Connie Stevens and did eleven months in Waikiki conducting for Don Ho.

In between all this, starting in the late fifties until I quit the biz in 1980, I did jingles (radio and TV commercials), TV shows, movies, opera and probably played on at least a thousand records. Most of the records were forgettable and I only remember a few that I did. I also worked at MoWest, MoTown’s L.A. studio, from the time they opened it in 1972 until i hung it up in 1980.

The usual routine was that we would record four songs in each three-hour record date or “session”. We would most often do all the songs for an album in two or three sessions. So, for example, when I recorded September for Earth, Wind and Fire, that was during two sessions over two days where I played with the other trumpet players Oscar Brashear on one day and Bobby Findley on the other, recording about eight tunes for the album that September was a part of. I remember September because it was so challenging and for the sad fact that the contractor, Ben Barrett, made a mistake and didn’t put me on the roster and I never got paid or credited. At the time, I was so busy I never caught the oversight until I noticed years later that I wasn’t getting residuals for the hit song being reused in movies, etc. By then it was too late.

I remember Can’t Get Enough of Your Love because Gene Page, the arranger, forgot to write the trumpet parts. Bud Brisbois, the other trumpet player, and I had to play the lick Barry White sang for us when he would cue us from the recording booth.

Listed here are a few records that I remember doing or for which I received a “re-use” payment i.e. you get paid when the recording is reused for a movie, TV, a commercial or when it is “sampled” into a new song, etc. To this day I am still being surprised by receiving a re-use check for a song I don’t recall recording. Anyway, here are a few. Perhaps you’ll recognize some of them.