My sophomore year at Bowling Green State University, I attended a performance by an African dance troupe. I don’t recall much of that show, save for the troupe inviting the audience on stage to dance along with them during their final number. Self-conscious, I remained stuck in my seat while other free spirits joined them, undulating to the accompanying percussionists beating on the stretched skins of hand-crafted drums. To this day, a small part of me wonders what I would be like had I participated in the communal dancing. Later that night, back in my dorm room, emptiness settled in. Watching those performers connect with their heritage through an art form made me think I had no roots. I’m a white Anglo Saxon dude with German/Scottish/Irish blood in me. Though I knew that my “people” dated back to the American Revolution, I felt like a mutt with no homeland. Although I would eventually leave my room to resume a typical college existence, I couldn’t shake this feeling for years. It wouldn’t be until Julie and I dove into the madness of Los Angeles that I would come to realize that, indeed, I did have a homeland. Instead of the open plains of the African wild, my landscape was the paved, tree-lined streets of North Olmsted and the Cleveland suburbs where I grew up. And the tribal rhythms I longed to have beating inside my heart did exist. The musical foundations of my life weren’t the chants and drumming of Africans; they were the musicians and artists I heard on the radio when I was an adolescent, adopted children like Bruce Springsteen and Pat Benatar — and native sons the Michael Stanley Band.

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