A Family Tradition - "A Lucky Little Boy"

Lou Sr. second from the left with the band he had in Brooklyn, NY

I have many relatives who were, or still are musicians. Most of my early influences came from country music. Putting aside the obvious ripoff from Hank Jr. with the title of this post, Hank and I go way back.

My earliest remembrances are filled with songs from Hank Williams Sr., Roy Acuff, Lefty Frizzell, Hank Snow, Johnny Cash, Flatt & Scruggs, and many other legends of country music.

It was only a matter of time until my mid-twenties and I would be melding the tones, inflections, arrangements, progressions and other elements of the country music genre into my own stew pot of a redneck hippy, rock & roll playing style.

The guys I had been jamming with in my mid teens taught me many tricks and techniques of rock, which I added to my advanced rhythm playing ability. Open chords were easy for me because most of the country music songs I had learned previously were almost always open chords ('cowboy chords' is what my friends used to call them). I could play complicated and fast progressions utilizing only open chords. Learning to play barre chords effectively was a much bigger challenge, and I will most likely devote a later post to describing that challenging experience.

A family tradition, my musical relatives:

My father
Two uncles (or more)
At least two cousins
A niece and nephew
My son and daughter
My wife

My dad, Lou Riccio, pictured above with the band he formed in Brooklyn NY "The Ozark Hillbillys", loved the music of Lefty Frizzell. He played guitar, harmonica and sing.  He also wrote some of his own material. Two notable tunes he co-wrote with my Uncle Joe Riccio, pop's brother, were "Pity A Fool" and "A Lucky Little Boy"

Joe Riccio - "The Singing Cowboy", Brooklyn, NY

An excerpt from "A Lucky Little Boy"

What a lucky little boy am I,
I can reach up to the sky,
I can sit on the stars and shake hands with Mars,
I'm lucky.

I have been told pop wrote that with my Uncle Joe right after I was born, but I am not sure... If that is true, he was right, I'm extremely lucky. But, most of all, I am blessed...


A video playlist of some of the music of my pre-teen years:

SHARE: