12 • August 2016 • UPBEAT TIMES, INC.
Musical Notes in Sonoma County •
Shekeyna@AMiracleProductionAMP.com by Shekeyna Black
“Looking Forward”
SONOMA COUNTY, CA. ~ Humble and confident, Smooth Sam Hurley, musician and all- around-good-guy seems wise beyond his years. Hurley, when asked
how
long he has been playing music,
coun-
“Do pots and pans He
ter-questions, count?”
recalls,
“When I was a little kid, (6 years-old)
I
used to play on pots and pans
because
my Dad was a
drummer.
And then, my Mom said no more drum set, anymore. So, I played guitar…I was 8.” Mu-
sicianship that was cultivated on his parents’ cookware has progressed to impressive guitar playing. Born on October 23, 1996, Hurley lives and breathes music. Hurley had
his first for- mal music lessons at age 10, where he grew up in a farm small farm town in Contra Costa County. He moved to So- noma County specifically to study music at Santa Rosa
Junior College with Bennett Friedman, a longtime Jazz Stud- ies Instructor. Hurley worked at
Santa Rosa Music Center selling acoustic pianos for a year and a half. Currently, he works at the Santa Rosa location of Bananas At Large selling instruments and restringing guitars and re- pairing guitar pickups. Hurley discusses his favor-
ite genres, “I really like a lot of smooth Jazz. I like Fusion, and it doesn’t have to contain Jazz at all. Fusion is the mix of any two genres. When genres are mixed is
when I am feeling the most at home. And if its not being mixed, I like to mix it. And that is more improvisational; which is, Jazz.” To deal with intense stage
fright when he first started playing in front of audiences, he would don a scarecrow mask and perform as an alter ego he
called Cosmic. Now comfort- able on stage, he added Smooth to his name as a reflection of his love of smooth Jazz. Other instruments Hurley plays, in
LANES Double Decker
300 Golf Course
Dr.Rohnert Park, CA 94928 12 • August 2016 • UPBEAT TIMES, INC.
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addition to guitar include pia- no, recorder, pentatonic flute, drums, and electric bass. Also, he can site read music.
... continued page 13 GUYS IN THE WHITE HATS? WHAT’S WITH THE C
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