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L. E. Bender Home Photos Tunes Booking CD's Schedule PDF File The first time music touched my life was in the early 1950's. My mother was a big band singer and my earliest memories were the standards of the 1930's and 1940's. In 1953 my parents took me to a Hank Thompson and the Braso Valley Boys concert and I fell in love with the steel guitar. We were classic Oklahoma dirt farmers and an instrument was not in the cards. A few years later we moved to Hawaii and my father purchased a used guitar with an additional sound hole in the back. Some duct tape and a pick and for the next several years I played Red River Valley over and over again. The early sixties found me playing Ventures, the Pyramids, Dick Dale, on the electric guitar, Dylan, MFQ, and Bud and Travis on the acoustic and Sonny Terry, Paul Butterfield on the harp. Any and all of those simple melodies that capture the teenager. Vietnam, the service, and then six wonderful years in Belgium. While in Belgium I started a Folk Song Club with performances at a local pub every Tuesday Night. A tradition that lasted twenty years. I left Europe in the mid seventies to study at Seattle University on the GI Bill. I studied music theory for two years under Kevin Waters, SJ, Graduating in 1976. I played with a constantly working Country Band - Fred Berryman and the Countrymen. Fellow music students Warren Payne and Art Watkins and I formed Alki and from 1976-1978 we toured many thousands of miles and played many gigs. The 1980's brought Ken Anderson and jazz guitar into my life. For twenty odd years Ken and I played and shared the experience of improvisation. During this time I was constantly in the studio, writing, performing and recording. Since the late 1990's I have been living, writing, teaching and playing on the Oregon Coast.
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