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College
wasn't enough for Cat. He also started performing with rock and soul bands.
Cat's first paying gig was playing behind two black singers who did boogaloo
(a rock-R&B hybrid like Sam & Dave). Soon afterward he got a steady
gig with a blues band playing six night a week in Redondo Beach. This
was on top of a full grad school course of study in composition during
the day. He also played behind musicals including a two year stint as
the pianist for the Hollywood Center Theater production of The
Fantasticks. In 1971 Cat moved to the arty hippie community of Venice by the beach and got involved with Venice Free Theater becoming the musical director for a local production of Hair. The director of the company encouraged him to write his own musical and helped him put together Lightflow, a theatrical and conceptual concert revue based on twelve of his original songs about alienation and moving into awakening, personal freedom and universal love. This passionate and colorful show was performed by a cast of twenty Venice locals and got rave reviews in the LA Times and Hollywood Reporter. RCA records was interested for a while but as the cast was large and largely undisciplined they wound up wanting only one song and one performer instead of the whole package. After several months of limbo and no money coming in, the group disbanded. Cat continued to perform with several local groups and got a job at the Palomino Club as a keyboard player with a country band that opened for many headliners including Jerry Lee Lewis and EmmyLou Harris. From here he got several studio gigs and recorded numerous sessions and commercials. |
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