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David Arellano

BIO

I didn’t have a lot of “things” when I was growing up, but what I did have was a large family & a lot of fun and adversity. I was born blind, raised catholic in Salt Lake City & the youngest of 5 boys & 2 girls. I always had to fight for everything I wanted or needed. I stayed pissed off most of the time.

However, instead of robbing banks or heisting armoured cars, since that kind of conduct was never encouraged in blind school, I took my attitude to the piano.

I was a rebel at home & at the Utah State School for the Blind in Ogden. I started playing piano there, & because I didn’t like conformity, I didn’t take the offered classical lessons, but pounded out rock & roll, learned by ear. (When you play piano by ear you scratch your face & get a lot of headaches).

Even though I could play very well, the teachers would never let me play for recitals or performances because I refused to take lessons.

Because I had such a large family, that listened to music 24/7, I was raised on Elvis, Ricky Nelson, Fats Domino, Pat Boone, Bobby Daren, The Coasters & millions of others. But you get the picture. I learned early that it was all about the feel & the feeling.

When I was 14 they let me out into the real world. They called it mainstreaming where they would integrate blind students in regular public schools. In this case my victims were the 1600 innocent students of Westlake Jr high in Granger, Utah. Most of them had never seen a blind kid before, so they let me be student body vice president. Yeah, it was a popularity contest & I wowed them with my Ramsey Lewis impersonations at assemblies.

Same story at Granger High the next year. This time it was Herb Alpert & Mammas & Papas tunes. Oh yeah, I was V P there, too. I know what it feels like to be Dan Quayle.

I also played, (off and on for 1 year) in one of the national casts of Up With People which taught me how to live on the road & sleep in a bus.

Before I could graduate, I got a job at a bar in SLC as a keyboard player.

Soon after that, I joined The Ditty Float Band, a duo with Carl (Bass) & Phig (Drums) Gonzales, and then myself on keyboards. The Band was hired to back the Jehry Miller & Mickey McKay touring show out of Los Angeles.

Between Up With People & Jehry Miller, I traveled & played in over 30 states & got pretty good at using my craft to pick up girls.

The Ditty Float left Jehry Miller & moved to Dayton Ohio, where we formed a group with Bobbie Brookshire Gordon, a fabublous blues & soul vocalist. We were working at the Red Ram in Evergreen Co. when Duke Ellington showed up on our day off. We went to see him, & Bobbie sat in with him & his band. End of our group. Actually we were very proud of her because she was now singing with the Duke. She was the last vocalist his band had before he retired.

It was about then that I married my high school sweatheart, Kathleen. It lasted for 10 years & 3 kids. Joshua, between jobs, runs the U.K. on his laptop at his home in Boston. Jacob, a tremendous visual artist, who, somehow, finds time to teach discourses on how to be himself. Mindy, world traveler, during layovers, teaches Ebay a thing or two.

I was playing with Martha Mason, a lounge act, in Winnepeg Canada, when the Ides of March from Chicago, showed up & stole me. Martha needed a new keyboard player so she found a kid fresh out of college named Michael Boddiker ,to take my place. I went on to Chicago with the Ides of March,& fame & fortune. Except it was Michael who would go on to fame & fortune with Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson,etc.

Is there something wrong with this picture.

I really learned how to be a pro player with the Ides because we were doing a lot of arena shows, and very busy, so I couldn’t cut up as much as I had. After I left the Ides, Kathy & I moved to Dallas for the remainder of the 70’s where I worked with several bands, as well as starting Musicians National Referral. MNR is a service to help musicians & bands find each other. MNR is still in business today.

I could only take so much pecan pie & country music, so when the left coast started calling me, I was ready to go.

I seemed for awhile, to thrive in the climate of traffic jams & neurosis,so I stayed in sunny, southern California. I lived with my partner in crime, Beegie (Rae) Burton in Santa Ana until the drive by shootings, murders, fires & general bedlam sent us packing for Skyforest in the San Bernardino mountains. By this time we had been adopted by 12 cats & so we needed some extra space. We’ve lived in Skyforest Ca ever since.

I currently work with the 5150 band at the Quiet Woman in Corona Del Mar 4 nights a week. I also have a digital studio in my home where I recorded the cds on this page.

I also have a room full of my keyboard equpment.

And now I wish myself well.

Thanks for listening

David Arellano


		I was a rebel at home & at the Utah State School for the Blind in Ogden. I started playing piano there, & because I didn’t like conformity, I didn’t take the offered classical lessons, but pounded out rock & roll, learned by ear. (When you play piano by ear you scratch your face & get a lot of headaches).


		When I was 14 they let me out into the real world. They called it mainstreaming where they would integrate blind students in regular public schools. In this case my victims were the 1600 innocent students of Westlake Jr high in Granger, Utah. Most of them had never seen a blind kid before, so they let me be student body vice president. Yeah, it was a popularity contest & I wowed them with my Ramsey Lewis impersonations at assemblies.


	Soon after that, I joined The Ditty Float Band, a duo with Carl (Bass) & Phig (Drums) Gonzales, and then myself on keyboards. The Band was hired to back the Jehry Miller & Mickey McKay touring show out of Los Angeles.