Bryan Wells

I was a hotshot at the piano as a boy and sick of it three years later. What saved me was a teacher who taught popular music — within a nanosecond I was tearing through Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard, playing VFW halls, Polish weddings and society parties, working my way through college one gig at a time. In 1966 I took a last-minute piano bar job as a favor to my agent. Halfway through the night a man sat down beside me and asked whether I wrote melodies. I played him three. He was Ron Miller, a lyricist under contract at Motown, looking for a partner. We wrote "A Place In The Sun," "Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday" and "Someday At Christmas" for Stevie Wonder. New York since 1970: a year with Bette Midler, a decade of music for radio and television, then jazz piano under George Coleman and Garry Dial, three albums, two decades at the Palm. I am still composing. Please don't ask what I do all day.