When I was 5 years old I went to my aunts House and my grandfather who was 70 years old at the time, was staying out back in her washhouse, because my grandmother had kicked him out for drinking, he was also musician. As I walked out the back door of her house, he said to me in his heavy french accent "Hey boy come here" so I walked over there and he told me to wait right there. He went inside the wash house and came back out. with a "Budweiser long-neck box" which he was using as his suitcase, he reached inside of it and pulled out a harmonica and proceeded to play "Oh Suzanna". At this time I was only 5 years old. (Keep in mind we didn't have a television yet, this was 1956). The only Music I had heard up to this point was on the radio or on my moms portable record player. So, I didn't realize people played music I just thought it came out of these "boxes". This left me awe-struck, that people could play music and maybe I could too. A few days later when I went back home I told my mom that paw-paw had played me a song on the harmonica. She then proceeded to go to the bedroom and came back with a harmonica and also played several songs for me. I asked her if I could have one as well. She gave it to me and told me to go out in the back yard and practice. From that point on I was completely hooked on playing and enjoying and entertaining others with music.

Unbeknownst to me, many years later my mother told me that my grandfather was a fiddler in a cajun house band here in Louisiana, so it seems inevitable that music would be in my destiny.

Steven Smith aka 'Scratch' Google