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It all started for me the first time I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in the early sixties. I knew right then that I had to play the guitar. My mom made me take piano lessons first for a year before she would let me give the guitar a try. I hated piano lessons at the time, but in retrospect, I am so glad that she made me take them, because my knowledge of the keyboard has helped me immensely in my never-ending pursuit of guitar mastery. I got my first guitar when I was about 12 years old, and quickly formed a neighborhood band with my brother on the drums. By the time I was in seventh grade, I hooked up with some experienced eight-graders who had a decent band together. We would play mostly high-school dances by then, which was pretty cool since we were younger than the audience we were playing for. By the time I made it to high school, a friend of mine, who was much better on the guitar than me, wanted to form a band. I wound up playing keyboards for that band (thanks, Mom!), and we played a lot of high school dances and private parties. Then, as a junior in high school, my family moved from Indiana to South Florida.
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Once in Florida, I hooked up with some guys in school and played around town on and off for several years. During a college break, my best buddy Joe Conti (a founding member of the Xchange) and I formed a local band with his sister on vocals and my brother on drums. We played around town for a while, until I had to go back to Gainesville to finish school. They recruited the Tillman brothers to replace me and Doug, the bass player, and continued playing around town for a while. When I got out of school, Joe was playing part-time in a country band. He was in the process of putting together a full-time country thing, so I took his place in the part-time band, and did that up until I married my beautiful wife Arleen.
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After that, I was out of the music scene for several years, focusing on my career. And that’s how I met Al Poliak, because by then, he and Joe and I were all working at the same stock brokerage firm. It became a yearly event for us to throw a band together to play at Joe Conti’s Annual Benefit for Kids in Distress, which we’ve been doing now for 17 years and counting, along with Joe’s sister Lori (a professional singer now) and my brother Al Fox. Other than the benefit once a year, I really wasn’t playing much music-but I was getting the itch!
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For a while, me and Joe kicked around the idea of forming another band, but we were both very busy with work, and never really got serious about it. Then one day he calls me out of the blue to tell me that we just joined a band! We hooked up with Steve ‘Bass Man,’ Jim ‘Fat Back,’ and Al for an initial practice / audition, and that night was the beginning of the Xchange Band. It just clicked, and here we are!
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I thoroughly enjoy the privilege of playing with these fine musicians - they drive me to play better, and for that I thank them. I also want to thank all of our friends and family for their support, and most of all, my wonderful wife Arleen.
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