As businesses and organizations start to open back up, it’s giving a lot of people hope that getting back to their normal lives maybe around the corner. However, for local musicians, they’re still a long way from retaking the stage and they’re all feeling it.
“I’ve been playing music for 45 years. I started when I was 13 and I won’t tell you my age either,” jokes local musician, Sammy Deleon.
For Deleon, music is more than a passion.
“Music is my life, man. I miss it so much and I miss my musicians big time,” says Deleon.
Just up the street from Sammy is another musicophile, Robert Hubbard Jr.
“So I’ve been in the music industry, oh, I’m getting ready to tell my age, around 30 years,” says Hubbard. “It’s how I took care of my family, my wife and children. I now have grandchildren and this is how I take care of them.”
Despite their long tradition of playing music and honing their craft, Deleon, Hubbard and many other musicians like them have seen their industry come unplugged during the coronavirus pandemic. Venues have closed and festivals and gigs have cancelled, leaving them with no place to play and no one to play for.
Deleon says, “There’s no music, so there’s no jobs. So, I’ve taken up side jobs and stuff like that just to get by.”
“The little savings that I had, dwindled all the way down,” says Hubbard. “I had to find a job, so now I’m just working the job and I come over here and practice. I go home, go to bed and do it all over again.”
It’s already been a long hiatus for local musicians and although some things are starting back up, they know, for them, there’s no real end in sight.
“I just miss everybody, man. It’s hard, it’s really hard,” says Deleon.
However, when they do finally get the green light to get back on stage for people, it’ll be like music to their ears.
Deleon says, “When they get the vaccine, so everybody, shoot them up quick, so we can get back together. The band is my life.”
“It means everything to me,” says Hubbard.