ALWAYS FIND TIME FOR THE THINGS THAT MAKE YOU HAPPY TO BE ALIVE
The Pirate before he became a professional musician...
The Pirate began his shanty career singing in church. His mother was a pianist for different churches and The Pirate would do solos with his mother accompanying him on piano. This is where The Pirate developed his vocal talents that eventually led to a professional career as a singer. Early on he was inspired by his cousin Tina's powerful voice and soon found top 40 and Country artists that sculpted his voice and influenced his music greatly. Along the way, The Pirate learned a bit of piano and guitar all while playing trumpet in the local junior high and high school bands. There aren't a lot of pictures of The Pirate performing before becoming a professional. His family just didn't have a lot of cameras. Lol. Some of The Pirate's influences on his voice and writing style prior to his professional career include: Elvis Presley, The Bee Gees, Dan Fogelberg, Barry Manilow, Billy Joel, Elton John, The Alan Parson's Project and Gary Morris.
Tony and The Pirate
Tina, Stephanie and The Pirate
Tony, Tina and The Pirate
The Pirate and his Grandfather
The Pirate becomes a professional musician...
The Pirate began his professional shanty career on January 8th, 1980. He remembers the date because it was Elvis Presley's birthday. Nate Sparks was the keyboardist pictured in the drawing and leader of the band, Blind Justice. The Pirate's first club was The Wagon Wheel, in Chesapeake, Virginia, and his first shanty was "My Sharona" by The Knack. Unfortunately, The Pirate was left with no pictures of the band, but one of the members drew a sketch that was pretty close. Left to right in the sketch is Donny Mayo on lead guitar, Larry Mayo on bass, John Smith on drums, The Pirate on vocals, The Pirate's cousin, Tina, on vocals and Nate Sparks on keys. This iteration of the band would last a year or two when The Pirate was finally shown the door. It made sense. The Pirate didn't add any instrumentation and what Blind Justice needed was an instrument playing male vocalist.
After Blind Justice, The Pirate knew he had to develop his guitar and piano work if he wanted to continue making money in music. He put together a lot of shanties and equipment and set out playing a lot of solo gigs around the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. Landing a gig singing the national anthem and playing before boxing matches at The Norfolk Arena didn't pay all that well, but it did buy The Pirate his first P.A. system. His first house gig was along the Virginia Beach strip at The Historic Cavalier Hotel. The Pirate's gig was an unusual 3pm-7pm and it opened his nights to a new opportunity he discovered known then as "Gong Shows".
The County Line was the name of the club where The Pirate sung his first shanty in a gong show. Gong shows were talent competitions similar to the famous hit show of the late 70's by the same name. If an act was rather bad, one of three judges scoring the competitors had the liberty to gong the act and end it. The Pirate didn't get gonged, but he did lose his first show. But he watched and learned what it would take to win. The next week he returned and won first place, $100. It wasn't long before The Pirate found other shows around town and was supplementing his gig at The Cavalier with gong show winnings. Before it was all over and The Pirate settled down into his final band at Blakely's, The Pirate had won over 100 gong shows, or just talent shows as they soon began to call them. Turns out, people tend to leave the club after they've been gonged. That wasn't good for drink sales.
