Most of my life there was an old upright piano in the basement of my parents' house. It was very much like the one pictured above, although it was painted a different color. I was always told that it had been waterlogged in the historic 1937 Louisville, Kentucky Ohio River flood and that, as a result, it was not very good. But it sounded great to me.
I never spent much time trying to learn how to play piano, I was too much under the spell of the guitar after the Beatles, but I certainly spent many hours picking out little tunes and learning how chords are made. One of the pieces of sheet music that was always on that piano was a simple version of "Sugartime", composed by Charles Phillips and Odis Echols.
The opening measures of this new tune of mine are very similar to the tune of "Sugartime." I noticed this almost as soon as I started to play the melody but I thought I would go ahead and see where it led. I'm glad I did because I've enjoyed playing this new tune quite a bit. The 8th notes are meant to be bouncy and not straight as you can hear on the recording.
I don't know where that old piano is now but I sure hope that it's bringing pleasure to another generation of budding musicians. Maybe that tattered sheet music is still with it.
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