Larry Kane
Rockin'Rhythm Saxophone Show
At the age of 12 my mom told me I needed to learn to play an instrument, so I picked saxophone from a list at school because the name was cool, although I didn’t know what one looked like or sounded like. I started playing out with groups at age 15, and upon graduating high school began a music performance major at the University of Akron, but dropped out to work professionally as a saxophone player which continued through age 41, the latter years working also as a singer and songwriter. I played in about 26 bands, toured for several years with groups such as Wild Cherry (play that funky music) and was a studio sax player for quite a few people, some famous, and even for some Gospel groups. I was always a goofball, using props, trampolines and even once a flame thrower in my shows. In 1987 I secured a good job as a one man band on a Cuyahoga riverboat, the Nautica Princess. It was a fantastic job and the audiences loved the high energy interactive show I developed. We did fun things like fill plastic fruit with popcorn seeds and hand them out like maracas, and lead conga lines around the deck. The captain had a script where he blew the boat horn at certain parts in a song I wrote for our theme, etc. It was great.
In 1995, to be home more as a husband to Maria and a dad for our children (Chris and Candice) I retired from music and opened a carpentry firm, spending the next 8 or so years building room additions and houses as well as doing architectural design. I remained active in local music but not at the professional level, until early in 2005 when my friend John Henry Gates (see postings page) encouraged me to return to music, which I have happily done! This return to music could have been a disaster but thank God every experience I’ve had in this up and down adventure has somehow found it’s way into the music and the music has defintely become richer because of it.