TERRY O’HARA INTERVIEW 2/1/19
Terry O’Hara: Tacoma’s Piano Man
Interview conducted on February 01, 2019
by Judy Grover
Terry O’Hara is the music director/pianist at Center For Spiritual Living-Tacoma. He also plays in bands around Tacoma and works with local theater groups. He recently produced a CD of his work and plans on producing a second album soon.
Judy Grover: How long have you been playing?
Terry O’Hara: Well..I haven’t started yet (as he looks at his watch)
(Laughter)
In your life
I think I started when I was about 6.–could have been 5 or 6—but I didn’t get a piano teacher until I was 6 or 7. Before then, my mom taught me, but eventually, she got me a piano teacher. She played very well—still does play for her church.
Cool—so musical talent runs in your family.
Yeah, Dad had musical talent—he played the trumpet and loved to sing. I could hear him singing in the basement while he worked on his furniture – he was a furniture refinisher—could hear him doing his Dean Martin stuff. You could tell he just loved to sing.
What kind of music did you grow up with?
Johnny Mathis—you know, my parents liked that sort of pop crooner stuff. But I always had the AM radio on under my pillow at night, listening to 95.7—KJR; 85– KTAC…For the most part, it was a good time, except for when scary songs would come on, like uh—do you know “The Crazy World of Arthur Brown”?
No.
He has a song called “Fire”–and the first words out of his mouth, is “I am the God of Hellfire! And I bring you”…and the song starts, “Fire!”
Heh heh – sounds a little Ozzy!
You’ve gotta check it out! “Crazy World of Arthur Brown”–”Fire!” And stuff like uh, “Riders of the Storm” was a little bit spooky…things like that. But you know, I would have that under my pillow during the night and then during the day, if I was home, I might have—be in the kitchen listening to the radio—Top 40.
What would you say had the most influence on you?
As far as music?
Mm-hmm
That would have to be The Beatles.
Of course!
Yeah—one of the first rock albums I ever got was “Hey Jude,” which was a Beatles compilation—had some great songs on there. Of course, the first, I guess, the pop record I ever got was a Monkees record my parents got me. But this was when Peter Tork had left—there were only three Monkees! But it was a good album. But yeah, the Beatles were my fave…
Yes!
Learned everything about ’em—all their birthdays (remembering birthdays)… Yeah, so I was nuts about the Beatles—still am—I follow them on YouTube, and all that sort of thing. And then Elton John came along…man, I thought he looks like he’s having a lot of fun there and maybe I could do something like that, and gosh, all the girls just seemed to love him! Didn’t know at the time (wink)! (Laughter) But I loved Elton John.
You do a good Elton John!
I love a lot of Elton John. And then after that, actually, was Emerson Lake & Palmer—just amazed me, ’cause I learned classical music growing up—that’s what my teacher taught me—she was…from the generation who always wore wigs (chuckle). But she was very good, and she had me play at her local Ladies’ Musical Society recitals—you know until I was 17 or something like that. And those were always classical pieces. So, when I snuck up into the attic to my brother’s room and looked at his records, I found Emerson Lake & Palmer –wow! That was good stuff. Greg Lake has such a great voice! But that was it—and then, along comes New Wave—got into the Talking Heads—I’ve got their first 4 or 5 albums—Elvis Costello and other bands…there was a good band called Television—had two albums—another band called The Motors—if you get a chance, check it out—their big hit was called “Airport.”
So did you grow up around here?
Yeah, I don’t remember anyplace else, because I moved here when I was about 4, from Aberdeen.
The home of Kurt Cobain!
Now, I don’t remember anything of Aberdeen—we pass through there now and then, you know—and I can see why he wanted to get out—there’s not much going on there. Yeah, I grew up around here—went to Bryant Elementary before it was a Montessori school. Then I went to Jason Lee Elementary, which was a great experience—there was an excellent band conductor there, Rex Turner—well-loved and respected by all the students—I think he came from Raymond, where my mom comes from. Then from there to Stadium…
Stadium has an excellent music program…
Yeah, and a well-known band director, and they had a Stage Band, which was directed by someone else, and it was a lot of fun. But I was slowly becoming disenchanted with school and I never finished high school—I left during my junior year. I went down to live on Salmon Beach. I was maybe a year down there, ’cause the guy who owned the place was a guitar player, he wanted to start some music.
And good exercise going up and down the stairs! One time we carried a big telephone pole down that hill!
Why?
Pilings or something maybe?
So from high school, I went to live down there for a while. But it didn’t work out…I just bummed around town in apartments and places a few years, and then I realized, yeah, I’m not getting anything done here so I thought…then somebody told me about Cornish College, a friend of mine, and said well, you can get a scholarship. So I was like, 25 by that time… So I went to Cornish, commuted—at the beginning, it was 4 buses! Two buses up, two buses back, because there were no express buses. So I went there for 5 years, got my 4-year Bachelor’s Degree—Bachelor of Arts–majoring in piano performance—which meant classical piano. But I tried every program—the jazz program for a while, and then the composition program (classical), and then back to the piano—classical piano—but I realized that I did that best, and might as well continue on with that.
You do that quite well! Have you tried any other instruments?
Oh, I used to play guitar a little bit—I can still strum a few chords—and took up the French horn in 5th grade—played that through junior high. Lots of oom-pahs!
And you also write music…
Yes, I do.
So what—well, I’ve heard some of your songs in church…
You haven’t got a copy of my CD, do you?
I do! That is the main reason why I wanted to talk to you! I listened to your CD and I said, “How in the heck did he do that?” Is that you singing all the time? Because it doesn’t sound like you but it’s a recording, so you know how that is.
Yeah—and sometimes you sound different on different songs.
You do, but is it all YOU?
All of the lead lines are me, and the harmonies are mostly me. The other guys sing backup on “Instant Karma,” and that’s all.
So who are the “other guys”
The tenor was Peter Tietjen—excellent drummer, one of the best drummers I know in Tacoma—one of the two…and the other, the bass player, is Cameron Arneson. We recorded those three songs down at Pacific Studios, ’cause Peter was working there, he got us a bit of a deal, and they have the latest stuff—equipment down there. They do have that thing where you can actually change the pitch after it’s been recorded! If you don’t want to sing the dang thing over again—oh, I can move it up a hair…
It sounds better, maybe?
It’s more in tune, sometimes, if it wasn’t quite in tune the first time. So we did that about 3 or 4 times, and I’m thinking aw, that’s a lot—just a little bit is enough—but he was so excited with all this equipment, he wanted to show off what he could do with it. We didn’t do a lot of it but he did show me how that could be done, so that was very interesting. But most of it is exactly the way we recorded it—took about 2 hours to do it, and then we spent about 2 hours listening to it—mixing it and stuff. But that was an excellent experience. Every time I hear it, I enjoy it!
I do too!
I’m happy to say I like it, I’m proud of it, and I’m happy to give it to anybody! I’m all sold out of my first batch! Only had about 20-25, but I gave a few away and the rest were sold at church. I finally have a product—they’ve been asking me at church if I have anything to sell… And then I’ve got enough material to make another one.
So what’s going to be on the next one?
Well, I think “I Feel Free” will be on that [Terry’s own composition],
You should get the choir to back you up.
Maybe so! And I’m going to do a live recording of it at church. And then I’ll do “Everything is Holy Now” and then a few more original…
Yeah, I like to hear your originals…instrumentals or vocals?
Both—some will be instrumental, some will be vocals—it will be mostly originals, I think. I could put a couple covers in—I don’t mind doing a good cover.
I also wanted to ask you about your work with the theatre—is it Tacoma Little Theatre you work with?
Well I work with all the theatres around town—Tacoma Little Theatre, Tacoma Musical Playhouse, Lakewood Theatre, Theatre on the Square…
So, pretty much all of them. And what’s your favorite performance that you’ve been in? Do you direct—musically director what do you do with the theatres?
Sometimes I’m just a piano player, or sometimes I teach the singers their parts under the heading of Musical Director–’cause often they use tracks for the shows so they can save some money. For me it’s nice, ’cause I don’t have to be there for the shows. I’m just going back to play for the Auburn theatre—I haven’t been there for a few years because I haven’t had a car for two years.
Do you have one now?
Nope, but I’m going to get a lift from the Director, Chris Serface–he’s the artistic director at TLT and he asked me if I’d do it—I said, well, I don’t have a car and he said you can ride with me. So I’ll be doing that as musical director—it’s good fun to do that because you have control, normally, over a large part of the music—you don’t have unlimited control because the director if he wants, he could say, “can you do this, or do that?” And I would say, “Well, it’s not in the music.” But you know, I try to accommodate things like that, and it’s been a great experience being the musical director, ’cause I’ve been turned onto a large bit of Broadway music, which I would never have heard before—and it’s just like an ocean of music! And I started out when I was 19, down at what used to be known as the Falstaff Dinner Theatre down on…now it’s a Goodwill or something. But it was the Falstaff Dinner Theatre and we did “Hello, Dolly!” and I was the second keyboardist there. I’d like to go back sometime and see how many shows I’ve actually done.
Must be quite a few.
A few hundred—I don’t know. I kept something from each of the shows, I think.
And then you’re in a band as well?
Well, I’m in—it depends what comes up—if people want some music, like Mario (Center for Spiritual Living) will ask for music for a summer festival or something and then I put together a band—usually it’s Cameron on bass, and Peter or Jay Douglass on drums. So I can get a band for any occasion, but I don’t have any set band going out and looking for a set of gigs, but I’d like to do that—I’d like to actually get a trio of my own. There are a few places around town to play—such as the Alma Mater.
So the church has been my bread and butter for the last—I don’t know how long I’ve been playing there.
Yes—I always tell my friends to come to my church, we have the best music—really!
Well, we do because (Rev.) Frances lets us do a wide variety of stuff…so it’s been free and easy, a wide variety of material. Though we only have the bass player to add to the piano he also plays tambourine with his foot.
You can hear Terry play every Sunday at 11 a.m. at Center for Spiritual Living-Tacoma. His CD can be purchased there
