One Special Pianist At The Sarasota Keys Piano Project

Boone at the piano.

The ARTS AND CULTURAL ALLIANCE OF SARASOTA COUNTY has taken to placing pianos at different venues, which it posts on its website. Those pianos are readily available for any passers-by to utilize for a tune or two. Each piano has its own unique styling, since artists are selected to provide the artistic veneer. They then become available to the public for impromptu musical arrangements.

One of the performers who has taken to the public pianos is Donald Gould, a 51-year-old man without a permanent home. He follows a repertoire that he learned as a young child, when he started out with the clarinet. Now known as Boone, he continued his musical pursuits in the Marine Corps, and then returned home to study music education at Spring Arbor University, with the hope that he could teach music. Boone says, "I took music theory and ear training, and I had to learn how to play every instrument from the piccolo down to the tuba. I can write parts like a handbook."



But three semesters short of his degree, he ran out of money, so he started a life of various jobs and also a family. Then his wife died in 1998. Boone related, "They sat me down, and they told me what had happened, that my wife had passed away...and I just lost it, man." There followed a descent into substance abuse and the loss of his son, only age three at the time, into foster care.

Eventually, he made it to Florida's Suncoast, where he met another musician, Paul Lonardo. Boone and Paul are known around the area for playing gigs on Main Street in Sarasota. So, it wasn't that much of a stretch for him to sit down at one of the public pianos and start playing tunes. But he never expected that someone would make a VIDEO of him, much less that it would receive more than 100,000 likes on facebook. As he said about his playing of Styx's "Come Sail Away", "I was thinking I could just put my hat on the piano and make a couple dollars and get tips. I didn't expect it to jump out to this."

This video, though, was not the only time that Boone sits at the piano and plays. He says, "I might not do the whole song complete as it was recorded originally, but I [know] enough to touch people out here - 'cause I've touched a lot of people apparently."

Sometimes it's a duo when guitarist Paul Lonardo joins Boone.

And every so often comes a reminder of a life that could have been when sometimes the little kids sit at the piano with Boone. He allows them to touch the keys - and in a magical moment - he helps them to position their little fingers to play part of a song, teaching these children as he would have taught his music students. "I play the 'Heart And Soul' bass, I say 'just hit the white keys, you can't screw up'....It doesn't matter how they play, if they play crappy or good, I always clap for them. I'm a nurturer, I'm a teacher," says Boone. He's also an expert at bringing moments of happiness to people he doesn't even know.

Another view of Boone on a public bench with his belongings.

Thanks to this article from ABC7 My Suncoast: http://www.mysuncoast.com/entertainment/news/featured/homeless-musician-finds-receptive-audience-on-streets-of-sarasota/article_ddaf749a-1f6c-11e5-9f44-03eeab4adabb.html.

Click here to visit Eat Beautiful.

Click here: THE MONEY BOOK