Brian Strong - Official Site

Now the birth and ongoing life of Brian Strong took place in this way, plus or minus quite a bit of literary manipulation by the author Mark Bilger , and subsequent editing by Brian's agent who shall remain nameless.

Brian was born....... and then......... for a long time nothing happened. Until at elementary school in second grade, Brian was told during an intercom announcement from the office that classical piano lessons were available to anyone who would like to participate. Brian mindlessly joined the lessons without a piano at home but figured he could walk the 30 mile round-trip to his aunt's house for practice daily on her piano.

After eight years of training and with his impassioned youth came a need to taste rock and roll music while pulling away from his classical training and background. Sure, he could justify his actions by saying that Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake and Palmer used classical techniques to add complexity to rock and roll, but it was the raw force and two or three-chord passion of the Romantics, and other new wave type groups, that he craved to experience too.

As he walked past the Lake of Erie one day, Brian saw brothers David Agosti (of Pal Joey and Da Sicilian Playboys and the Love Zombies ) and Douglas Agosti (of the Love Zombies ) sitting around gig-less. They said to one another, "Let's form a new group called the Nu-Tones to specialize in new wave music. Immediately they left their gig-lessness and joined in this endeavor. But the thirst for rock experiences would not yet be quenched in the soul of young Brian.

He went all about Toledo, playing in their bars and healing dancers who had nothing good to dance to. Brian hardened the tips of his playing fingers by continually playing rock and roll of all types through five or six more bands who swayed his musical tastes to and fro dizzily from new wave, to rock, to pop and everything in between. They brought him audiences who were afflicted with various lacks of musical experiences, and the inability to dance in time with the music. He healed them and made them dance well until their legs and backs hurt so they could run to far away destinations and tell of their good fortune and new abilities.

He also heard himself being called to use his talents at the outdoor Encounter Christian Festival held in central Ohio. It was such a grand success that the next year it no longer existed. Again, he played at the Oikos Habitat for Humanity Festival in Bahalia, Ohio and a year later it was abandoned as well. Something powerful was happening here!

As his musical and personal experience levels grew, so did his need to jam with serious players who wanted to do something original and creative instead of just covering other people's songs. His need led to a group of local players falling together and they named it Flipside. (Educational side note: Flipside is a term which referred in a bygone era to the back side of popular 45 rpm vinyl records that nobody ever listens to) Chuck Caswell (of E.J. Wells and The Haymakers ), Bob Huffman, J.J. Johnson and a few other guys worked feverishly to get ready for public consumption of their combined talents. They were killer musicians who enjoyed jamming but they took one gig in a backwoods bar, bored themselves to death there for one weekend and shot off in other directions musically though they remained true friends.

After the sudden breakup of his new creative outlet, Brian searched high and low to replace his band guys and decided to dabble in country music as yet another avenue that his classical training had not prepared him for.

The Lonestar Band accepted Brian and went on the road from New Mexico to Minneapolis. There were lots of good-but-totally-forgettable stories, memories and life-lessons that were mostly lost during that time. Overall, it was a good experience because it brought Brian's persona out and suppressed the introverted and shy characteristics that had made him flee from people like a rabbit in a car's headlights.

Afterwards, he took time off from regular gigging and bopped around the country from New York to Colorado in his blue Chevy Blazer just for the fun of it. Whenever he needed some money to live, it apparently just fell from the sky like manna, though it is said that fresh manna tastes much better than dollar bills. Even Brian would have to admit that bopping from state to state isn't financially prudent and then Brian stopped bopping from town to town and moved to Nashville.

While sitting alone in his apartment, Brian realized that he enjoyed writing Christian music but had not spent much time doing so in the past because he was distracted by other bands. So, during his stint in Nashville, he wrote mostly Christian music and finally changed clothes which allowed him to meet a lot of people and have a lot of fun. He wrote a few of the songs on his "Lessons to Learn" CD while there.

There was also a national contest called "Genesis Nationwide Talent Search". The organizers were putting together a Contemporary Christian compilation CD and had a panel of national radio programming executives as judges who would choose 10 songs, try them out on the radio and then choose three finalists. Brian made it to the Top Ten.

During this era, Brian couldn't completely leave his beloved homeland of Toledo, so he would journey back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I-75 became so mundane and uninteresting to him that he could put his cruise control on, go into a self-induced coma and the beat and battered 525,000-mile Blazer would follow the tire gullies of the lane all the way back. While in Toledo, he would randomly sit in with some more good friends of his, Georgia Peach, a southern rock band which began in 1980 and whose members today are spread across the area in such groups as the Say What? band and Dry Bones Revival.

While living in Virginia (the state, not the beach), Brian rung the last remaining miles out of the blue Chevy Blazer by coming back to Toledo to play with the Kerry Clark Band all around northwest Ohio. It (the Blazer, not the band) finally died at 675,000 miles. Nobody really knows why he drives that far to play but he considers it a good thing to be doing.

Brian recorded his CD "Lessons To Learn" mostly with the recording, producing and engineering expertise of his current guitarist Jeff Harris. Brian has toured lots of places with the CD from Maine to Florida to Texas while receiving great reviews. He always carries a box when he leaves home because he gets lost occasionally and ends up on the other side of the country and must sell some CDs for gas money to get back.

The album is being played on numerous stations globally including stations in Australia, New South Wales, Africa, Central America, Philippines, Guam, London, Scotland, Ireland and the UK.

Subsequently another cd was released simply called "The Christmas CD" which contains solo piano favorites of Christmas Classics. Ironically the cd was intended as a Christmas gift to his family and a few friends but.. by word of mouth turned out to be a very big seller.

Since then, Brian has played with RadioFlier while in Ohio and a host of great musicians in the Northern Virginia / Washington D.C. area where he was a resident until the fall of 2003.

He has dedicated himself to learning new acoustic instruments (the instruments aren't new, they're just new to him) including low whistle (popularized on the later bass version of the Andy Griffith show), fiddle (popularized by somebody on a roof), guitar (popularlized in the Burt Reynolds movie Deliverance), cello (popularized by Bill Cosby's commercials in the 1980s) and other acoustic instruments that he takes interest in (possibly spoons, sports cards in bicycle spokes and the juice harp are next). He's busy writing new material for an upcoming instrumental CD due out this year.

The End

Written by: Mark Bilger