The Musician... see you among the stars

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Dedicated to: Marie Dore & Gracie Sammartino

I would like to thank all the Mafia´s involved, no matter how unjust they might have been, who put their efforts in making this musical era flourish, and for personally keeping my neighborhood crime free and safe. I also want to thank the great men who recognized the music and provided the wax specifically, the great Clive Davis and Columbia Records, Berry Gordy and Motown Records, and all the greats at Stax Records.

Thanks to Elva Ray Bergstedt for the inspiration. She put the thought of writing this autobiography into my mind.

Special thanks go to some of the most helpful and influential in my life; James R. Bergstedt, Matt Boggs, Marie Dore Granatelli, Val White, Frances, Hugo, Joey "Doe" Sammartino and Ritchie Wheelchair.

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Acknowledgments:

I was blessed to be born during the years from 1942 to 1950, which created by birth, some of the most talented group of people that ever existed, and I was among them, performed with many, and watched most of them perform live. I thank my Creator for giving me such a wonderful fantastic era to be alive and the gift of music.

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From Top Left: Otis Redding, Eric Burden and the Animals, Cream, Neil Sadaka, Al Green, Elvis, Simon and Garfunkal, Sam and Dave, Glady's Knight and the Pips, Dionne Warwick, Ritchie Valens, Led Zeppelin, Mountain, Debbie Reynolds, Marvin Gaye, The Ventures, The Brooklyn Bridge, Booker T and the MG's, Traffic, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Dave Clark Five, The Young Rascals, James Tayler, The Moody Blues, Earth, Wind and Fire, Richie Havens, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, Sal Mineo, Duwane Eddy, Aretha Franklyn, Little Ritchard, Jimi Hendrix, The 5th Dimension, Fabian, The Isley Brothers, Jan and Dean, The Beatles, Soupy Sales, Chicago, The Four Seasons, Issac Hayes, Triny Lopez, The Ronnetts, The Big Bopper, James Brown, Bobby Vinton, The Everly Brothers, Wilson Picket, Peter and Gordon, Ricky Nelson and Family, Mitch Ryder, Teddy Pendergrass, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Frank Zappa, Kool and the Gang, The Temptations, The Mamas and Papas.

...., but I didn't like this:

Something about this book

I wrote this book, because I told a lot of the true stories to many people and especially my friend Jim's mother Elva who just loved the stories and told me that I should send them to Readers Digest and that many people would like to read my true stories. That is when she got me thinking. At first, I thought it was a great idea, you know, maybe making some money. The more I thought about it the more confused I got. Why, because where do I start and which story would people rather like to hear and the more I thought about it.... Should I tell the story about when Hendrix and I almost got kicked out of the Brazzarie Restaurant? What about the story of Jake Jacobson? That's a classic too. And what about experiencing the country's kaos during the killing of the president Kennedy and others that followed and the gradual capital elite corporate takeover of America that proceeded it. I knew it, felt it and lived it while the people were dieing all around me because of it. This is more than short stories to Readers Digest which will certainly not accept some of the topics even though they are real. Nah! I need to write the entire story. Nothing can be left out! It's more of a documentary of real life, real people, and so it went.

Something about the layout of this autobiography.

The book is basically about music but manifests into other areas when my life and world gets turned upside down. I wanted to talk mainly about the creative things I've done, and all the fantastic people I met along the way and had great experiences with. Thus, the stories about my growing up in the beginning of this book are kept as minimal as possible, although interesting and unique too. My surroundings during my childhood age is not that important to me until I begin to talk about the way it leads me into the music business, and then the stories evolve into more detail and get more intense only because I was brought up in an innocent era which transformed into a violant era to make way for the twin towers and its ideology.

Thus, it was very difficult writing this autobiography. I had to re-live my life over and over again. The five years I spent in my wonderful cabin home in Creel, Mexico reading, studying, and comprehending the OAHSPE Bible during my break times away from this autobiography certainly made it a much more enjoyable task, but still, the mental anguish of re-living your life continuously is kind of sad. Then I had to read the same written material over and over again many times to try and get it right and comprehensible until I couldn't take it anymore.

When that happened, I took a very long break and actually forgot all about writing the book purposely, and I didn't think about it again for about another three years. Then, when I had some free vacant time, I took one third of the the first part of the book and concentrated on getting its mood as correctly as possible, and once I made that happened, it renewed my inspiration again and I continued.

As in music, when you're recording one of your songs, the song is never finished. Every time you do another mix you hear something that needs improvement. It goes on and on and basically, you just got to say STOP! Go on to the next song. That's the way it is and that's the way it's going to be. Same with this book, I can add and add and change and rewrite parts, but NO, this is the best I can get it for now. At times, I will still add to it and correct it if something new pops-up or something important develops up until my death.

In addition, I grew up at the early time of the UFO phenomena which showed me that there was something greater out there. After the killing of JFK, The United States of America changed drastically for the worst. With it, an entire peace loving movement of people had been destroyed along with my current career and the entire New York music scene as the slow moving corporate shift took its place. My goal had then become to learn who and/or what was responsible for that. It was a wakeup call to seek truth, and I would learn that the truth was very hard to find. The belief-system that was mind-controlled and instilled in me made it more difficult. I relied on the T.V. news and the media in general to inform me. I somehow always knew intuitively, even when I was little, that something was wrong or something was not right with my surroundings, my country, and the world, but I didn't know what it was. It was not until I actually saw the UFOs fly over my head later on in my life that the real serious truth seeking had come into my mind. The truth seeking built very slowly and gradually grew as I retained more knowledge. It would manifest greater as more time went on as more and more information was coming available to me, because I was seriously looking. I would learn that the further you walk that path of uncovering the truth, the bigger the path gets so one has to stay focused. Near the end, I would finally learn who and what destroyed my generation and who continues to do so throughout the world.

As you walk this path with me, you may also find in these writings, vulgar language, sexual attitudes, bias, prejudice, conspiracies, hatred, resentment, depression, ignorance, unpatriotic thoughts, suicidal tendencies, and many other feelings, thoughts and emotions too numerous to list them all.

This is a part of life that everyone experiences, but they are afraid to admit or ever say openly. However, I wanted to write a true autobiography with no holes bared and so, I exposed everything I experienced and how I felt at the time of the event in order to present the real truthful picture of feelings and scattered emotions as it actually happened. We become the product of the people and system surrounding us that instill it in us knowingly and unknowingly and yet, in life, we try to grow and hopefully learn to deal with it and overcome them all. I certainly have tried to do that, but it took all my life to accomplish this thanks to my Creator and spirit, and my willingness to learn and move on. If I didn't overcome all those things mentioned above, or at least improved on them, then my afterlife in the spirit world would mean nothing.

Throughout this autobiography, you will learn about some great music events, music people some you love and some you didn't know about, and places that you never knew had existed. So, through all that's mentioned above, try to enjoy the ride.

btw: The term "see you among the stars," was my trade mark that I developed when I first began writing autographs if you were lucky to have gotten one from me. I would sign my name and under or next to my name I would write, "see you among the stars." It has a double personal meaning for me and that is why I chose it. First, because I performed with many pop stars or hung-out with many top star people in the music business and maybe you will see me performing again on stage somewhere. The second meaning is, that if I don't ever see you again then, after we die, maybe I will bump-into you in the spirit world somewhere...so see you among the stars