When I was asked to do my first road gig in Fall 1977, I couldn't wait. The Memphis Rockers were a new band who had a gig backing crooner Al Raitano. We'd be playing in Louisiana for a couple weeks then head for three upstate New York destinations for six-night-a-week hotel engagements thru the end of the year. Then, it was onward to Michigan for a few weeks in January. I had always wanted to make a living playing music full-time, and here I was doing it! We dressed in our tuxes every night, and played some schmaltzy and some not-so- schmaltzy tunes. Al Raitano was a really good singer, and between our dance sets we would back him for two shows. One of the shows was a 'stump the band' 50s set, where Al would take requests for any song from the 50's and we'd play an excerpt from the request. It was fun and it kept us on our toes...ya never knew what the next song was going to be. Al's other show featured him singing popular songs from artists he could closely emulate. There were songs from Tom Jones, Englebert Humperdinck, Boz Scaggs, Lou Rawls and a host of other Adult Contemporary singers. I had always avoided playing that type of music up to that point in my life, but now I was a mercenary and played what I was paid to play. And I enjoyed it...the other musicians were good players, the songs had interesting chord changes and arrangements, and Al was a good guy and had a good voice. Even though I had been playing guitar seriously for ten years, I was the least experienced musician in the band. And listening back to old tapes, I had definitely not yet learned to temper my playing to match the subtleties of what was happening around me. But somehow the rest of the guys put up with my over-playing and we jammed on. Shortly after the January 1978 gigs in Michigan, we parted ways with Al and went out on our own. More to this story…stay tuned.