A personal note: When Michael Jackson saw me play

Pretty sure it was my senior year at Moore High School in Oklahoma. I played lead guitar in the stage band.

Well, we went to All-State in Tulsa, where we stayed at the Mayo Hotel downtown. I remember a restaurant, by a train station(?), where I ate two breakfasts in one sitting. Sax player Lindell Steffens said we should enter me in a contest. I was a skinny kid.

You know, I always liked the way, say, B.B. King's fingers looked when I saw him play guitar on TV and they did a close-up of his hands. For some reason, my hands didn't look like that.

Early one morning, we went to a Tulsa TV station to record a selection for broadcast. We were invited into the booth to watch the playback. During my solo, the camera zoomed in on my hands. And they looked like B.B.'s did on TV! I really, really got a thrill out of that, like there was something I was doing right because it looked right.

All-State was maybe a two- or three-day event.

Well, one morning, I think it was a Saturday, the Moore High School stage band set up in a ballroom at the Mayo Hotel. Our name was on the sign outside the ballroom as being scheduled to play. Cool.

So we were set up in the middle of the ballroom, facing the big double doors. Seems like maybe we had a 30-minute set to play that morning.

Well, we were a couple of minutes into our set when the big doors opened and in walks this kid, all by himself, with his shirt untucked. He stood to the right of the doors, just listening.

It was Michael Jackson. We had heard the Jackson 5 were staying at the Mayo, and here he was!

So he stood inside the doors for a good 10 minutes or so, just listening, like I said. Then he quietly left.

You know, we weren't really that abuzz about it. I mean, we did talk about it, like, "Did you see? That was Michael Jackson!"

We heard that after he left the ballroom, some female fans recognized him and chased after him, that he barely made it into the elevator in time.

It was cool, though, and I guess he liked what he heard, at least enough to not walk right in and walk right back out.

And, years later, it makes a good story about when Michael Jackson saw me play.

Cool.