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industry has never been done statewide.” So that has become yet another one of his crusades and he has had high-level meetings with state officials, hoping to get the ball rolling on commissioning such a study. For Wick, the musical journey began at an early age. Born at Touro Hospital and raised in Metairie, he attended high school at St. John Prep in Mid-City. While riding on the bus to school and listening to a portable radio, he got into the music of The Allman Brothers, David Bowie and other popular musicians of the 1970s and was especially enthralled by the guitar. “’Ramblin’ Man’ (by The Allman Brothers) is probably the song that got me most interested in music,” Wick said. “I can remember hearing that song and I was like ‘Wow!’ The emotion in it was so powerful because, to me, music is about emotion. ‘Golden Years’ by David Bowie was another one. The guitar playing in it was so magical. Those kinds of tunes drew me emotionally to the music.” With an older cousin whose father was Connie Jones, Pete Fountain’s longtime cover story trumpeter, the two of them started a rock band while both were attending St. John Prep. The band played for church functions, CYO dances and other special events. From there Wick went on to the School of Music at Loyola University while performing all over the city and the metro area with his fusion jazz band, Entourage. “It was fun but it was not a moneymaking machine,” Wick noted. “It was back in the days before you could do it record music yourself. No CD burners, no internet or YouTube. It was either get a record deal or nothing. We would save our pennies so we could go into a recording studio, do two or three songs and use them as demos to try to get gigs.” In 1994, while attending Loyola with several members of the Bucktown All- Stars, Wick was invited to fill in for the band’s lead guitarist. “He was studying for the bar exam so I subbed for him and then, over the years, I took over that spot in the band and I’m still there,” Wick said. Wick’s many years of performing as a professional musician gave him some valuable insights into how the music business operates and a lot of what he was seeing was not to his liking. A year after joining the All-Stars, Wick linked up with pianist and Loyola music faculty member Sanford “Sandy” Hinderlie and they founded a digital recording company, STR Records. Almost immediately after their first release, a solo effort by Hinderlie, the company was deluged with recording requests from some of New Orleans’ top musicians. But, according to Wick, “A couple of years in we realized we know music but we don’t know the business side of things.” Concurrently, Loyola was starting up its music industry program and, as Wick began looking around at Reid with Dee Dee Bridgewater, Tarriona "Tank" Ball and Anjelika "Jelly" Joseph from Tank & The Bangas at the Recording Academy Membership Celebration at the Old U.S. Mint in January 2017 Photo courtesy of The Recording Academy, credit: ©Erika Goldring/WireImage MAY / J U N E 2 0 1 7 breakthrumediamagazine.com | BREAKTHRU MEDIA | 17


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