Oboy

Richard Del Connor 

I love playing music. Always have.

My parents and brothers told me to give up singing and playing music and stick to being a carpenter. My mother told me she'd rather I work in a Burger King than pursue my dreams. My dad and brothers have told me for over 30 years, "Dreams don't pay the bills." 

They were right. Dreams don't pay the bills. But I'd rather have my dreams than live like my parents or brothers. 

Currently, 2025, my family is hoping I won't prove them wrong and start making money off my music dreams at age 71. So SUPPORT MY PARENTS and don't buy my music to prove that they were right and I've wasted my entire life singing and performing and songwriting and poetry writing and novel writing and teaching Shaolin Kung Fu and Yang Tai Chi Chuan and raising my kids as a 'stay at home' Mr. Mom. 

If you're here at my website, my family would advise you, "Don't read books." They won't read my books, so they don't know if they're good or not. 

But they don't want me to make any money. So you have a choice: LAUGH at me, or LISTEN to me. 

I'm probably dead when you're reading this. So don't forget to support my nieces and nephews who "don't read books" also. Don't buy my books! 

But if you're an artist, a musician, a novelist, a photographer, a poet or a singer: I'll show you how I lived a VERY HAPPY LIFE by ignoring my relatives and living in poverty for 50 years. My LACK OF FAME has given me a wonderful life of complete freedom.  I've never heard anyone say, "I love all this fame..."  Ironically, I wanted fame.  But perhaps my success is NOT HAVING FAME.

I've played piano, then trombone, then guitar, then bass, then organ, then flute, then drums... and no one paid me to do it. I just enjoyed it. I expressed myself in poetry and music. 

I studied Shaolin Kung Fu and graduated under Grandmaster Wong Jack Man in San Francisco after he beat up Bruce Lee. I founded several Kung Fu schools and taught in prisons and rehabs and elementary schools and and middle schools and high schools and colleges and churches and parks... I've improved the lives of hundreds of students. Of course my parents and brothers never supported my schools and abilities to help people. 

I founded Shaolin Records in 1984 and have been releasing vinyl albums, then cassettes, then CDs, and now I'm trying to figure out how to share my music to a generation that doesn't appreciate musicians or songwriters unless they have millions of dollars of advertising. I could go on. 

I'm just pointing out that this album, Oboy, was a LABOR OF LOVE. We didn't get paid to make this album. We barely made enough money on these gigs to pay our roadies $25 a night. I'm releasing this Oboy album as a tribute to ALL THE MUSICIANS I PERFORMED WITH since 1970. 

Some of the musicians on this album are dead. I am saddened to think I cannot let them enjoy these fruits of their efforts, ambition and creativity. WE DID IT BECAUSE WE LOVE TO PLAY MUSIC. I also want to thank all these musicians for BELIEVING IN ME more than my brothers and parents ever did. You musicians invested months of your lives to create this album. "THANK YOU" to all my fellow musical artists. "THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!" 

Now, you, the person reading this has an opportunity to reward and honor us musicians, or tell my relatives, "Richard Del Connor should never have pursued his dreams. You were right to discourage and dishonor him for pursuing his artistic dreams."