There are only two things you need to know about me. Everything else flows from these two things. The first thing that you should know about me is that I’m Samoan (pronounced “Saw-Mo-Un” not “Suh-Mo-Un"—it’s a long “a") and that I was born and raised [+]There are only two things you need to know about me. Everything else flows from these two things. The first thing that you should know about me is that I’m Samoan (pronounced “Saw-Mo-Un” not “Suh-Mo-Un"—it’s a long “a") and that I was born and raised in American Samoa, a small volcanic island (now dormant) and U.S. unincorporated territory (there are no Federal Courts there) in the South Pacific—about 2,600 miles SW of Hawaii (or 5 or so hours by plane from Honolulu International Airport). I was born in the village in Fagatogo, moved to Auasi for the first 6 years of my life, before going to a small village called Amouli on the far east side of the island where as a child, cars were so infrequent at night, my friends and I could lie down for hours at a time without worry of becoming a greasy spot on the road. Once in a while a car would come, someone would shout “e, taavale!"—which means, “Hey, car!"—at which point we would stand up, move to the side of the road to allow the car to pass, then we would go back to lying on our backs on the road, looking up at the stars. There are lots of stars in Samoa’s night sky, quite unlike here in Los Angeles, which is where I now reside. We always had music playing on those nights when we used to safely lie in the middle of the road, which segues nicely into the second thing you should know about me.
The second thing you should know about me is that I have made music my life’s obssession. This stems from a lot of reasons. I was born of a bi-racial marriage between my dad—he was born and raised in Alabama—and my mother, who was born and raised in independent Samoa (once known as Western Samoa). My father, while not one while I was growing up, was at one point in his life a professional musician. He played fiddle in the deep south in the 30s, and according to him, even made it to the Grand Ole Opry playing with great bands like the Sons of the Pioneers. I have only his word to go on this, so if anybody reading this can confirm or deny this report, I would appreciate it. In any event, both my father and mother transferred their love of music to me as a child. I grew up singing in the car, listening to records, and of course, to things like Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 radio show. My brother Bobby and sister Sandra and I
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