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Coffee House Music Session with R.J. Gaudio - Troubadour

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In his own words:

R.J. GAUDIO - TROUBADOUR/Robert J. Gaudio: Among other things, I am a husband, a father of three children, a grandfather of four, a brother of five, an actor and director of local theater productions, and a criminal-defense attorney with the Ohio County Public Defender’s office. I have practiced law for over 25 years after working for various amounts of time as a steel-mill worker, a university professor, a fine-dining chef and a restaurant manager, not to mention myriad other odd jobs.

Playing and singing music has always been a positive, crucial, stress-relieving, keenly therapeutic part of my life. Always. I have played music and sung since I was 7 and have written music now and then since the age of 17. I started piano early in life and learned to hate playing due to a very severe and demanding teacher. I began singing in the playpen as a toddler and have not stopped since! I have also learned to play harmonica and certain percussion instruments over the years.

The guitar became a part of my life at the age of 15 and has been my constant companion ever since. I even took a road guitar to Yemen when I was in the Peace Corps from 1977-1979. I have played in groups and solo gigs over more than five decades. The genres of rock ‘n roll, straight folk, folk-rock, bebop jazz, hillbilly, big band, country, bluegrass and old-timey sacred songs have interwoven a fabric of diverse sound through my music life.

Musical influences span over half a century, including big bands, Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, the Beatles, Dylan, Paul Simon, John Prine, Flatt and Scruggs, James Taylor, Eric Clapton, Ricky Skaggs, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Madonna, Richard Thompson, Lady Gaga and Michael Buble, to name only a few. Call it what you will, perhaps musical schizophrenia?

I performed in coffee houses in the 1970s in Morgantown and learned to love the acoustic genre and the socially-aware tunes that arose from the early 1960s in Greenwich Village. I will render those kinds of songs and some others when I appear at the Ohio County Public Library on August 2nd for the Lunch With Books program. I truly ook forward to bringing the Troubadourian tuneage to our library, the bastion of Western Civilization in Wheeling!
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Kris Kristofferson
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