Re: 030127 MMDigest

Roger Hughes sort of compared all the pianos that "Liberace wanted to
buy" to the pieces of the true cross, or perhaps that bridge that I
bought last year.

The Liberace comparison might not fit quite that well.  He did own one
huge slew of pianos!  He sent out Christmas cards every year, always
in the shape or theme of a piano.  Special folk (like my boss, who
owned our company) got piano-shaped things like ashtrays.

I worked with Lee (that's what he wanted me - also Lee - to call him)
in the 1960s.  I thought he would be a terror.  Turned out to be one
of the nicest, most easy going, charming persons I worked with, and
there were many in the concerts I promoted back then.  Only one lemon
in the whole bunch:  Jose Melis.  Sheesh!  Maybe we just caught him on
a bad share day.

I think I told here the story of a piano string breaking in the middle
of the Liberace concert while I was standing in the wings.  He was so
nonchalant, handled it like it happened every program.  Finished the
piece he was playing by changing key to avoid that note, and during
the huge applause at the end, walked over to where I was, by which
time the piano tuner was standing there with wire cutters.  Lee went
out, cut the string, carefully wound it up, sought out a teenage boy
near the front of the audience, and handed it to him as a souvenir.

The crowd ate it up; I think many of them thought it was all "part
of the act".

Lee Munsick
Appomattox County USA