When I was little, 4 years old, there was a Beatles cartoon. The voice impersonations were very bad, but it featured bits of Beatles music. At the same time, the ?Monkees? were on TV, and I really enjoyed that show. Sure, they were a TV version of fab four, but I was entertained. I heard all of that great Beatles music growing up, always a part of my life. I also admired the Moody Blues, Gordon Lightfoot, and Neil Diamond. In 1971, I was 8. I heard Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey on the radio several times. For the next two years, I kept asking my Uncles and other ?adults? who it was by. They always said ?the Beatles?. I couldn?t find the song on any of our Beatles records. So, I got a paper route, to make money to buy Beatles albums that we didn?t have. I eventually bought every Beatle album ever made, by the time I was 11. I still couldn?t find the song. One of my Uncle?s was convinced it was Paul McCartney, so I then started saving and snapping up Wings albums. Finally, on Ram, I found it. I finally owned it. I continued buying Wings albums, and had my bedroom covered with Beatles, McCartney and Wings posters. A rather nice poster came with ?Venus and Mars?. I became a pretty good musician because of Beatles/McCartney music. I took music theory in high school and did several arrangements of Beatles songs ? Let it Be, Yesterday, Get Back, Long and Winding Road, and did a solo of Blackbird at one concert. I was good enough to get a music scholarship at the local junior college. I played guitar, bass, drums, piano, ukulele, violin, viola, cello, mandola, mandolin. Anything I could find, really. One day my friends decided to play a prank on me. This was before ?Back to the Egg? came out. I was 17. Someone called, and provided a decent British accent, and said that they had heard of my work at school, and that Paul McCartney would be honored if I would consider coming to Ireland, to provide assistance and playing on their next album. Well, at 17, I was none the wiser, and ran around the house ecstatic. (We didn?t have caller ID in those days). My friends let me spout and gloat about it, my pride, and then finally after a few days one of them did that same British accent and nearly repeated the whole phone call. They got a great kick out of it. I didn?t. I ended up dropping out, and joining the Navy, where I spent the next 21 years and let my love music whither. One of the most difficult songs for me to learn, we actually there are several, was ?And I Love Her?. I have not seen any live performances of that song anywhere on the internet. Just the one single performance on ?A Hard Days Night?. It?s a tough one. It became my wedding song, and I whispered those words into my brides ear as we danced, and we both had a very teary loving dance. I love that song, and yes, it is a bear to play and sing at the same time. Two other difficult ones that took me a long time to get through, was ?Sing Along Junk? and ?Blackbird?. Two years ago my wife was in Cincinnati, and I found out the day before her coming home, that Paul was to play there the next night. I again went into a frantic state, trying to figure out how to get there, cancel her plane tickets, buy tickets for the show, so that I could finally be in the right place and the right time to see a Paul show. It didn?t work out. Paul will be in DC in July. Finally, I have the tickets. Those guys taught me love, respect, and music. I can?t wait to see him.