I just added a paragraph to my article about Norma Jean Bell. I have recently reconnected with an old friend, the illustrious Mr. Kern Brantley, a monster of a bass player, and the musical director for the Beyonce show (among others). He appears in concert and on TV regularly (he let me know he was on the Ellen show last week, I was unable to catch it but I'm sure it was awesome.) Anyway, let me just print here the paragraph I wrote in the other article:  "one more really important detail... is the fact that the reason I was able...

I went down to Florida with my Thai girlfriend in May of 1982. We both got homesick after a while, so we came back up to Michigan in January of 1983. After returning to Michigan, I scored a gig with Norma Jean Bell and the All-Stars, who had a house gig at a club in Detroit called Axel's, on Eight-Mile Road -- the same Eight Mile Road that Eminem named his movie after. (I had some gigs in the same city where Eminem grew up -- Waterford township -- and I've worked with Eminem's producer, Luis Resto! But that is...