I'm not going to bore you with some made-up overdramatic rock n' roll story, like how I used to live on the street after I ran away from home. And how I had no money and my folks used to beat me constantly!

In fact, I had a great childhood and I was raised by two great loving parents.

How did I get started? My Aunt Carol gave me a piano when I was six and I started taking piano lessons immediately. It was fun for a year but then I wanted to quit. But Mom and Dad said " I don't think so". So I continued taking lessons from a local church pianist named Mabel Bennington.



She taught me great fundamentals and she was very strict. However, I was getting bored practicing everyday and my friends were constantly making fun of me. Then one day at elementary school everything changed. The teacher left the classroom to go to the office for an emergency. There was no one to watch the class and everyone went crazy after he left. The usual, paper airplanes, spit balls, teasing the girls, .......But there was a an old piano in the corner of the room and I went for it. I started playing the intro to "Crocodile Rock" and the whole class became quiet and started paying complete attention to me. Then the teacher soon returned and I was busted, because no one else played the piano. Although I was in trouble, I quickly learned that I had a tool to show-off that no one else had. At that time when I returned home, I glued myself to the piano and became a musical sponge. Then soon to follow, I started playing the oboe and the saxophone in the fourth grade. My poor mom. Driving me to all of those lessons. I don't know how she did it. By the time I hit seventh grade I was playing everything I could get my hands on. This is when I met my Junior High Band Director, Alex Becton. He found a way to harness my ability and give me direction.

Although my parents were not very musical, they had a great record collection from the 50's and the 60's. I listened to Elvis and the Beatles over and over. When I got to high school , things changed again. The guys that were playing guitar were considered cool and they got all the girls. Not the guys who played oboe, piano, trumpet and saxophone! When I turned seventeen I traded my tenor sax for a guitar. I started to jam and sing as much as I could. But for the first time musically, I had a set back. I sucked as a singer. It was frustrating because everything else came so naturally. Singing did not and I had to work very hard at becoming a strong vocalist.

For the rest of my teens, I had a love/hate relationship with music. I tried playing music in local bands, but I was always broke and musically frustrated. My friends were going to college and I was feeling left out. So it was off to college and a career in mathematics and computers. It was fun for a while, but finally I reached peace with myself on one thing. What I really love and what I do best is music.

I started performing again in every aspect I could. Piano bars, solo, duo, and all types of bands. I found a groove as a solo artist and I just kept growing. During that period of time, I began to write, write and write. Then it was off to South Florida to reach as many people as possible. While living and performing nightly in the Ft.Lauderdale/Miami area, I soon started mixing my original material with covers and things were going well for me. In 1996, I released my first body of work in the form of a CD called "Love Today". In thirty days I sold 200 copies, with no big promotions or fanfare, just performing. This was all I needed to keep writing and performing.
Like so many people today, I used to equate money with happiness. And I thought you had to be on MTV to be considered musically successful. I was wrong. I'm not a millionaire and I'm not on MTV, but I'm so happy just performing nightly and writing everyday. When it's said and done, I'm just a kid living out his dream.

Glenn Govot