[Dixielandjazz] One Mo' Bio - Rocky Ball

[Bigbuttbnd at aol.com]

A (not so) short Bio for Rocky Ball

First let me tell all of you THANKS for your prayers and concerns during my 
recovery from a stroke since January... I'm doing GREAT and playing quite a bit 
every week.

At the age of 6 I took piano lessons so I could play in our small Baptist 
church in Thunderbolt, Georgia. At least that's what my mom thought! She would 
never have sent me for lessons if she knew I would eventually play in (and even 
OWN) a nightclub! The lessons didn't last long... I wasn't interested at first 
but I did come away with the ability to read music and a fair amount of 
dexterity.

At 13 I found a book in the piano bench that belonged to my older brother. 
"Winn's Popular Method For Playing Swing Bass" or something like that. It taught 
you how to analyze and convert arranged piano sheet music left hand (bass 
clef) into chord notation. In the back of the book there was a chart that 
demonstrated 5 kinds of chords in all 12 keys.  (ex. C7, Cm7, Cmaj7, Cdim, C7+). So I 
had all of the fundamental jazz chords in every key on a chart at my 
fingertips. Reading the left hand had been my weakness and suddenly I had a method for 
memorizing left hand chords (just like a guitar beginner would do - 
memorizing chord forms) while being able to play the melody in the right hand. It was 
like a door opening! I began buying fake books at the music store every week.

Although I hadn't heard any jazz yet, I was really into Rock n' Roll, Gospel, 
Soul, Rhythm and Blues, Country and Pop. I soaked up everything I heard on 
the radio without any musical descrimination. I began playing organ in church 
'cause I had a key to the church and I could go practice any time when there was 
nobody else there. I didn't practice hymns... but I could wail on Booker T 
and the MGs as well as Jimmy McGriff and a little Jimmy Smith.

I also loved to improvise and on Sunday mornings I would make up tunes as I 
played before the service. Occassionally my attention would drift from the 
hymns I was making up and accidently play some blue notes (way outside of the 
style) and each time I did I would get this terrible icy stare from my mother 
sitting about 10 rows back. That would usually jolt me back to the moment and I 
was sure to hear about it after the service.

By the time I got to college (Georgia Southern College - 1971) I could read a 
standard chord symbol piano part (in any key) and "comp"... which got me the 
piano chair in the college stage band. Somewhere in there I wandered into a 
banjo/sing-along club in Savannah called "Tom's Warehouse." The group I was with 
insisted that I get up and play some boogie-woogie piano on the band's break. 
While I was doing that the piano player in the band passed out and had to be 
carried upstairs. The banjo player asked me to sit in the rest of the gig but 
I didn't know the tunes... so he called chords to me and I kept up. The band 
offered me a steady... come in each night after the second set (about the 
duration of the piano player) and finish the night out while he slept it off 
upstairs!

When I went out to find some recordings to learn from I ended up buying Louis 
Armstrong, Bix, Mugsy Spanier, Dukes, Al Hirt, Pete Fountain, etc. instead of 
the banjo/sing-along stuff... and ended up liking the 'real thing' even more. 
I got pretty interested and formed a jazz band there at GSC and quickly 
picked up a summer 7pc gig playing Dixieland at Hilton Head.

My junior year I transferred to Georgia State University in Atlanta to study 
commercial art. Before I left, the guys in the "Tom's Warehouse" Band gave me 
a list of EVERY Dixieland player in Atlanta. When I got to town I called all 
of 'em.. but being a new guy, I didn't get any work. So I decided to find my 
own gigs and hire these guys as side men hoping that eventually they'd get to 
know me and reciprocate. Within a year I had started a very young Dixie band 
(high school ages) called Raz'Mataz, at Six Flags Over Georgia. We quickly 
developed a huge repertoire and Six Flags made us their representatives to the 
community by using us in a variety of performances both at the park and in the 
hotels and venues in downtown Atlanta. All of the guys in Raz'Mataz began to be 
integrated into the ranks of the pros playing trad jazz in Atlanta... sort of a 
new generation of players that took up the tunes and traditions of the 
generation that came before us.

The piano became unwieldy so I was encouraged to take up the banjo. At 24 I 
bought a banjo and a banjo book and began some serious woodshedding. Soon I was 
playing banjo with and learning from many Atlanta musicians: Hal Johnson, 
Bill Rutan, Ron Beisel, Ed Cuneo, Sammy Duncan, Herman Foretich, Ernie Carson, 
Dave Hanson, Skip Derringer, Don Gumpert, Stew Magee, Ben Johnson... even Perry 
Bechtel, whom, as a fledgling banjo player, I had begun to admire. 

In 1978 the core (4) of Raz'Mataz accepted a summer engagement at Kennywood 
Park in Pittsburgh. After a successful summer we formed a partnership and 
created a production company, RMT (Raz'MaTaz) Productions and began producing a 
variety of live entertainment for amusement parks across the country, including 
Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh, Idlewild Park in Ligonier, PA, Dorney Park in 
Allentown, PA, Elitch Gardens in Denver and Stone Mountain Park in Atlanta. I 
even married one of the performers, Becky Poland from North Huntingdon, PA!

For the next 13 years I wrote 50 or more 30 minute shows, some with live 
bands and some with singers and dancers who performed to pre-recorded tracks. I 
auditioned and hired hundreds of young talented kids, many of whom went on to 
distinguished careers on Broadway, in Hollywood and in the Recording and 
Television industries. I became involved in every aspect from set and costume design 
to sequencing, producing and engineering recorded sound tracks. I spent 2-3 
months in a recording studio every year and 3-4 months creating sequences in my 
own MIDI studio at home. I wrote shows around every conceivable type of 
musical style and chased multiple drop-dead deadlines year after year, spending 4 
months of every year in Pittsburgh or on the road and 8 months each year in 
Atlanta.

In 1991, as my children grew old enough to attend elementary school, my wife 
and I decided to stop all of the traveling and stay home in Atlanta. I 
partnered with some other trad jazz musicians and opened a Dixieland joint in 
Underground Atlanta called Fanny Moon's Beer Hall. We formed a house band called the 
Big Butt Band. We operated from 1992 until early 1996 and then shut it down 
when the management of Underground decided to play hard-ball with its tenants 
regarding the Olympics coming to town.

That provided me with the opportunity to move in a different direction. I had 
always wanted to be a commercial artist and had majored in Commercial Art in 
college but opted to play music instead. In the interim years I had developed 
a pretty good knowledge of computers and the art business had moved to the 
computer so I took the next logical step and began training myself to open a 
freelance graphics business (one that would not interfere with my freelance banjo 
business!)

I spent a year at Kinko's learning the software and 2 years at Turner 
Broadcasting learning networking and I.T. ... all the while developing a spate of 
graphic clients on the side. In 1998 I left Turner and opened my own business, 
ArtWorks Graphics, where I do every kind of graphic work including web design, 
identity design, brochures, advertising and specialty advertising design and 
production as well as Tee Shirt production art. All the while I continued to 
play banjo as a sideman for a number of bands as well as a soloist and band 
leader for the on-going Fanny Moon's Big Butt Band.

My dream was to be able to make a living playing music and drawing pictures 
and do it from my home... and that pretty much describes my work today. In 
November, 2002, at the age of 49, I had a brain stem stroke that has really 
affected my life in many ways. I was blessed (thanks again for those prayers!) to 
have very little (if any) loss of motor control so my banjo playing is 
unaffected (as is my piano playing). My only real downside has been a loss of balance, 
which forced me to re-learn to walk, and double vision, which affected my 
computer graphics work at first. I have since overcome much of the double vision 
problems and am back to full speed on the computer. I still can't drive but 
that should be resolved in another month or so. I spent a couple of months in a 
wheelchair and a couple more with a walker and a cane but am now walking 
unassisted (although my gait ain't exactly pretty!)

Currently I play often with Hal Johnson's Ruby Red's Warehouse Band (which 
has been around since 1966!), occasioanally with Don Erdman's Hotlanta Jazz Band 
and regularly with George Carere's Dixieland Stompers (www.georgecarere.com) 
and Lee King's Chick-Fil-A Moo Cow Band (www.moocowband.com). I also lead the 
Fanny Moon's Big Butt Band and perform frequently as a banjo soloist. 

Here's hoping it hasn't been TOO boring a read! Thanks,

Rocky Ball
Banjo (4 string plectrum)
Atlanta, Georgia
www.artworksgraphics.com