Terry "The Count" Medeiros, the son of second-generation Portuguese immigrants, was born in Honolulu Hawaii in 1950. While attending Star Of The Sea grammar school he took up the ukulele at the age of seven, the guitar followed at ten. Encouraged by [+]Terry "The Count" Medeiros, the son of second-generation Portuguese immigrants, was born in Honolulu Hawaii in 1950. While attending Star Of The Sea grammar school he took up the ukulele at the age of seven, the guitar followed at ten. Encouraged by his grandfather he attended the Clem Low Music Studios at age eleven. Working out of Mel Bay's Modern Guitar Method he got his first Harmony electric guitar and a Supro amp. In the eighth grade Medeiros performed for the first time in front of his grammar school during the annual May Day celebration. "Outer Limits" and "Walk Don't Run" were the songs performed.
High School happened in the middle sixties. The Beatles, Rolling Stones and the rest of the British invasion left their mark on Terry. It was during this time that Terry started to look to other guitar players to influence his guitar playing with.
Django Reinhart, Les Paul, Tal Farlo, Herb Ellis, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Pass, Sabicas, Andres Segovia, Muddy Waters, B. B. King, Albert King, Freddy King, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Otis Rush, Duane Allman, Jimmy Johnson, Cornell Dupre, and Leo Nocentelli are just a few of the great guitar players/musicians that Terry listened to during his teen years.
It was during high school that "The Count" formed his first band "The Sunday Collection." The band performed their own material as well as popular songs of the day. They placed second in a battle of the bands held at the Honolulu Shell supported by Terry's fledgling blues based guitar solos and show stopping harmonica playing. During the show they were spotted by a local DJ that took them into the studio to record a couple of songs that were pressed, released on a local record label and got a moderate amount of local radio air play.
Around this time Terry was introduced to the legendary "Kid Ory." Terry became entrenched in the blues and went off to join two blues based bands "The Silver Bike" and "Luke's Pineapple Store." "The Count's" popularity in the islands grew; he formed his first blues guitar quartet "The First Grade" and performed at the first Diamond Head Crater Music Festival. The band received favorable reviews in the Honolulu Star Bulletin. While performing at the festival he was spotted by drummer Randy Seol from the Strawberry Alar
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