Edito de Old Father RoadAlex Grant knows that being fired was one of the most positive things that ever happened to him. Raised in a strict, orderly and loving family to be "something sensible, please", he had followed this direction for forty years, when he was abruptly let go from his job as general manager of a manufacturing firm in Phoenix, Arizona. Although approached by other companies in related fields, Alex decided at that point to really look at his life. "I had always enjoyed playing the piano in the relative safety of my living room, and had a vague but deep desire to do so professionally", he says thoughtfully. "I finally decided that if I didn't take this opportunity to pursue what I most love to do, I'd probably kick myself when I was eighty!" Grant's odyssey actually began much earlier. Growing up in a rigid, academically-oriented environment, he excelled in school, and started at the University of Missouri-Columbia on both a full academic scholarship and a Navy ROTC scholarship. "My dream back then was to fly jets" Alex reminisces. But then, midway through his sophomore year, he started writing music-"it was like a floodgate had opened". So life-altering was the deluge that Grant very quickly left behind the scholarships and the career plans, left school and took a job as a dishwasher, to the astonishment of both parents and friends. For the next twenty years, Alex worked a wide variety of jobs, all involving hard physical labor which he discovered he loved. He unloaded fishing boats in Alaska, drove forklifts and delivery trucks, worked in a state mental institution and any number of warehouses, eventually arriving at the level of general manager, a position he held for five years before the ax fell in 1994. With much-needed moral support from his wife Susie, Grant took the leap and began playing professionally in the fall of that year. He is self-taught and as such plays entirely original compositions. "I literally can't play anything I haven't written, except perhaps 'Happy Birthday' and that rather poorly!", he laughs. Grant's signature style of Neo-Classical piano is clearly evident in his emotionally evocative recordings, which are currently receiving national airplay on DMX Radio, NPR's "Morning Edition" program and a nationally syndicated radio program called "Quiet Music". He and his wife live with their dog and two cats in Denver, Colorado. Lire la suite