|
John Paul Larkin, more commonly known as "Scatman John", was a pop musician and singer who used scat singing together with jazz and techno pop.
John was born in El Monte, California, on Friday the 13th of March 1942. He was born a stutterer. As a child, growing up in a nearby Californian district of El Sereno , John used to pretend to play piano on his mother's coffee table, until he got his own at the age of 12. He seemed to be hooked from the start. At 14, John heard Ella Fitzgerald scat-singing on a song called "How High the Moon ". This song, he said, stole his heart. It was his introduction to scat-singing and to jazz, along with the likes of trumpeter Louis Armstrong, Stan Getz, John Coltrane, Art Pepper and Bud Shanks , musicians John was influenced by from an early age.
John's stuttering problem made his childhood "traumatic", and the consequences began to unfold. John took his first drink at 14 and realising it made him "feel better", the problem escalated. By the time he was 18, John was playing piano in a band doing gigs around Southern California with two other guys from his college, and drinking had become a regular part of his life.
John became the professional jazz pianist he always wanted to be. After "playing almost every jazz club in Los Angeles," John's personal life was becoming unbearable. He had moved onto drugs, and his alcoholism still had a hold on him.
|
|
5a
![kameron[gordito][burrito]](http://c4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/14/s_09f3a83abf4349a4b621cdb2bbff1edf.jpg)
![[STORM]=[WYLDE]John[360][Angus] :-) Ding 70!](http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/46/s_1d0922684632bc934fbe550059576c38.jpg)
