Songs With a Story
I’ve dabbled in AI music for a couple of years. My earliest efforts were feeble, but eventually they led to successes.
At least I think so.
You decide…
How AJ became the DJ.
Mid-to-late 1970s. Shore duty. I was actually a very shy person.
I started going to the Witchduck Inn in Virginia Beach. I always sat at the same six-top, all by myself, sipping whiskey and soda and listening to DJ Don Copeland spin Golden Oldies from the ’50s and ’60s. Girls would ask me to dance. I always very politely refused.
The coming-out party
Then came the announcement of a Halloween party with big cash prizes for best costume. There was a silhouette sign behind Don depicting partygoers in dated outfits. I decided this was going to be my coming-out party.
Many dollars later, I showed up in tails, top hat, cummerbund, spats, and sporting a diamond-tipped cane.
And still sat alone at the six-top, sipping my whiskey and soda and refusing dances.
A young nurse—I’ll call her Cassie for her privacy—convinced me I wouldn’t suffer from one slow dance.
Except that three bars in, Don dropped a popular disco beat, and I was trapped on the floor.
One dance led to another
Turned out to be a good thing. Over the next few weeks, Cassie taught me several moves. Actually, several dance styles. Then we started teaching others: five dollars, any dance, no matter how many tries it took.
As I remember it, a local dance company eventually sent us a cease-and-desist over charging for lessons without a business license.
So we started giving free lessons. LOL.
“You’re allowed to talk between songs!”
During that time, Don and I became good friends. One night he asked me to start the next record while he took a bathroom break.
When the current song ended, I cued the next. Near the end, with no Don in sight, I scrambled through his collection and cued up another song.
Then another.
Turns out Don was watching me from behind a tinted-glass room divider the whole time.
“Hey! AJ! You’re allowed to talk between songs!”
The transformation was complete that night. From shy and retiring to AJ the DJ—all while moonlighting from my Navy assignment as an instructor at Navy Training Center Norfolk.
That was the beginning.