The boogie-woogie medical clinic

Welcome to the Catalyst’s Community Voices platform. We’ve curated community leaders and thinkers from all parts of our great city to speak on issues that affect us all. Visit our Community Voices page for more details. 

I’ve played a lot of gigs since high school, but I’m not sure I have ever played one as satisfying as my impromptu performance last week at a medical center in north St. Pete.

My wife Karen was scheduled for a visit to prepare for some radiation treatments. It has been 10 years since her diagnosis with breast cancer, and she has lived this long and this well due to the careful care of her doctors and advances in medical science.

When we first walked into the treatment center, the first thing that caught my eye was a mahogany brown Knabe baby grand piano. It belongs to one of the two doctors in the clinic, both of whom can play. It is not unusual, I was told, for one of them to come into the comfortable waiting room and knock out a tune or two.

Besides Karen there was only one other lady waiting for treatment. I asked her if she had any musical requests. Her choice was “Unchained Melody,” a classic made most famous by the Righteous Brothers.

Lucky for me, I had played it a thousand times and hit the opening, slow-dancing chords. To my amazement and delight she began singing in a beautiful voice, hitting all the high notes. She only stopped when she began crying. “That was my mother’s song.”

Now two more couples joined our audience. I took some requests: “Peace Train” by Cat Stevens, “Just the Way You Are” by Billy Joel, “My Girl” by the Temptations. One of the receptionists began dancing in her chair and singing along.

A man in a wheelchair asked if I knew any Spanish numbers. I started with the classic “Cielito Lindo,” whose lyrics tell us that rather than cry in sadness, we should sing for joy. The man, Jose, seemed to be straining his memory for the words, but closed his eyes as if he were reading the lyrics on the inside of his eyelids. I accompanied him for the Cuban classic “Guantanamera.”

Jose tells me that he is an expert on Cuban music, and once had a gig calling into a radio show where he would offer his comments and appreciations. Wow, I thought. This was going great.

A couple came into the clinic, he was tall and gangly in a relaxed hippie kind of way, and she was blond and wearing a black sweater with large white musical notes on it.

They sat down, and I asked them if they had a request. “The blues,” said the man. I played the opening riff to an R&B classic “Let’s the Good Times Roll.” As I played an instrumental break, the lady got up and sat next to me, and began to join in. I looked down to see that she had six fingers, three on each hand. “Oh my God,” I said, “I know who you are.”

I first heard Liz Pennock play the piano on stage of the Palladium Theater at a performance of the most famous artists who play in the boogie-woogie style. Her husband, Paul Shambarger, accompanies her on the guitar. He is known widely as Dr. Blues.

Before I heard her play, someone told me that she had six fingers. But when I heard her, the notes were so crisp and the sound was so full that I thought she had six fingers – on one hand, that she was polydactyl. That she was playing with eleven fingers!

After our little performance, I told her that, and she told me she took it as a compliment. Liz and Dr. Blues play lots of gigs in the Tampa Bay area, although they have hit some slow going since the hurricanes damaged so many of the seaside bars.

Liz is receiving some treatment on her left hand. I am hoping that the two of us can challenge the two piano doctors to a musical face-off. Call it The Battle of the Hands.

They can use all 20 fingers, but I have a hunch we can beat them with just 16.

In the meantime, I thanked the small audience of patients and caregivers, told them that they should tip their servers, and that I would be returning over the next two weeks, the time Karen would be getting her treatment. I don’t always enjoy sitting in a medical waiting room, but, damn, did I have a good time in this one.