I have lived in Pacifica near the ocean my whole life. Started playin that damn accordion at age 7. My grand parents gave us a piano when I was 10 years old and that's when all hell broke lose. My accordion teacher, Albert Tassi, played Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and some cool-ass boogie-woogie on the new piano and that was that.

Somewhere down the line music started gaining steam in the Parvin family. My mom, dad and sister got behind little brother Leroy. I took lessons, tried to learn, tried to get good. Had an original psychedelic garage band in high school called Pink Ivory - I played organ and kicked pedal bass and sang. We had a great guitar player named Dirke Lyman and a awesome drummer named Doug Peng, the original power trio! We played the Fillmore twice ( after my Dad threatened Bill Graham!!) and did hundreds of gigs all over California. My Dad, Henry Parvin, was the driving force behind us and he drove us all right... nuts. He was the Bill Graham of South Rosita Court. He was always gonna make a million dollars one way or another on his boy Leroy and the band. Well, as everybody in rock and roll knows, bands are uncontrollable and " Pops" couldn't control us. We all went slightly crazy with the times. Our drummer died in a car crash and my guitar player got married - to my sister Kathleen! Through it all the band reformed and we kept at it. My father would book the band and we played show after show until our fingers fell off. The money from giging gave us a cash flow and helped us add on to the family house and buy that never ending new gear...Around this time I started recording music with a 2 track Roberts tape recorder with the cables run down the hallway to the bedroom.

One Sunday morning after the Sat. nite gig we were at one of the famous Parvin band breakfasts that my mom would cook. My Dad was holdin court as usual and talking shit about bustin a hole in the band room wall to create a doorway to the bedroom for a recording studio control room.

All of a sudden we heard this loud crash and we ran into the band room and there was Rex Starr, our road manager, holding a huge sledge hammer next to a big-ass hole in the wall. My old man started laughing and we decided then and there to start building a real studio to record in.

A year later, with much sweat and tears and hard-earned money, my father, Rex Starr and myself built the first version of Parvin Studios. God bless those guys. This was 1974 or 1975. My beautiful mom, Martha Parvin, helped bankroll the whole affair with her job at San Francisco State College as Secretary to the Dean of the School of Creative Arts. My Dad also had a great payin job at Central Fire alarm in SF.

My parent's were always helpin other artist and people down on there luck. Making art was foremost in our house. My dad was an oil painter and my mom was into theatre and dance. Mom and Dad had a blast most of their lives until my father's wheels completely fell off in his seventies...but that is another story...

Meanwhile.....

I started writing and recording myself and then other artists... I just got way into it !

Recording with the 2 track gave way to the 4 track Teac and then to the woodburning Ampex 1 inch to the mighty Goldstar Ampex 16 track 2 inch and finally the Sunset Sound Ampex 24 track 2 Inch. We are talking tape here, all you pro-tools punks! Hundreds of songs and projects and people and wild rides.

Having decent equipment attracted all kinds of musicians to the studio. Some world-renown greats passed through, making some amazing recordings. It became such a deep learning experience for all of us, way more than we bargained for. Sent my family into wild times... brought out the best and the worst in us. Some of it I'm still livin down, the never-ending workin and partyin - the eighties almost killed me.

Eventually 19 year old Nancy Hall showed up in the flurry of the far flung Parvin empire. I had played music with her husband at the time ( local bass player Lee Kirby, another one who is no longer with us ) and heard she could sing harmonies real good. Well, we got her in the studio and she was way more advanced than us with her vocal and musical ear, those harmonies...! She had no idea about chords and theory - she just heard it!

One thing led to the next... the two of us started living together and working on the music. Went thru many bands together and countless recording sessions. We didn't stay together as a couple, but we flourished together musically. I've learned more than I can ever tell you from Nancy Hall. I've worked with some great talents, but Nancy's always been my constant artistic companion in life, the one to tell me the truth. I'm blessed to have her in my life.

I'm still livin the musical life here in San Pedro's Valley...with my ever supportive loving wife Denise Parvin and my awesome sons Justin Meyer and Brooks Parvin. They have carried me thru these years and weathered the storm of growing up in a house with a studio and a crazy keyboard player in it. I'm nothing without them...

Anyway... enough of this......On with the show !

Wanna talk back? Go to the blog drawer and have your say.

Leroy Parvin