10
Itzhak Perlman
Polio
Many
consider Perlman the greatest violin player of the 20th century. He
contracted polio at the age of four, but made a good recovery, and
learned to walk aided by crutches. Today, he generally uses crutches or a
scooter to get around. He plays violin while seated, which you may have
caught at American president Barack Obama’s inauguration. Charlie
Daniels calls him “Sir”.
9
Edgar Winter
Albinism
Winter
is an American blues musician. An adventuresome multi-instrumentalist
at home on keyboards, saxophone, percussion, and vocals, Winter was most
successful in the 1970s with The Edgar Winter Group. He is easily
recognized by his albinism. Due to the lack of pigmentation in their
irises, many albinos are very sensitive to light. Yet Winter has made a
career on brightly lit stages playing “Frankenstein” from his great
album, “They Only Come Out at Night”.
8
Paul Stanley
Microtia
Stanley
Eisen (stage name Paul Stanley) is the rhythm guitarist and lead singer
of the marketing juggernaut/rock band KISS (estimated album sales, 100
million). Stanley was born with Microtia, a rare congenital deformity
where the fleshy part of the outer ear (the Pinna) is extremely
underdeveloped or absent entirely. His solution to avoid schoolyard
teasing was to grow his hair long, and that kind of chose his later
profession. Stanley is also the spokesman for About Face an organization
that provides support and information to individuals with facial
differences.
7
Bret Michaels
Type 1 Diabetes
Poison’s
lead singer Bret Michaels was only six when diagnosed with type 1
diabetes, a disease that renders the pancreas unable to make insulin, a
hormone essential for converting food into energy. At ten, he went to
the Kno-Koma diabetes camp, met other diabetic kids, and learned to
legally shoot up and eat correctly. After that, he joined Poison and
sold 25 million records by constantly touring a frenetic stage show.
He’s in his forties now, still tours, and can be seen on his own reality
TV show, courting loose women.
6
Kenny G
Asthma
Asthmatic
Kenneth Gorelick is a Grammy-award winning saxophonist once rejected
from the University of Washington music program. Today he could buy the
University of Washington. His smooth jazz expanded the jazz market
exponentially and sold 48 million records–making him the 25th highest
selling recording artist in America. One of his most successful albums
is titled “Breathless”.
5
Ray Charles
Blindness
Charles
is an American treasure/musician who mixed gospel, blues, and country
in the 1950s and 1960’s. The son of a sharecropper, his version of
“Georgia On My Mind” was proclaimed the state song of Georgia in 1979,
only a decade and change from the days of Jim Crow. Rolling Stone ranked
him number ten on their list of “The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time”
and their readers voted him number two on the list of “The 100 Greatest
Singers of All Time”. He was the last artist to arrive for the “We are
the World” recording sessions, and when he entered the studio, the room
finally had soul. You could hear a pin drop.
4
Jacqueline du Pré
Multiple Sclerosis
Jacqueline
du Pré OBE was a British cellist, acknowledged as one of the greatest
players of the instrument. She is particularly associated with Elgar’s
Cello Concerto in E Minor; her interpretation of that work has been
described as “definitive” and “legendary”. Her career was cut short by
multiple sclerosis, which forced her to cease performing at the age of
28, and led to her premature death. Watch the video clip above to see
one of her astoundingly masterful performances. There has never been a
cellist like her and her early death is a tragedy.
3
Tony Iommi
Industrial Accident- partial finger amputation
After
an accident in a sheet metal factory, 17 year old southpaw Tony Iommi
lost the tips of the middle and ring finger of his right hand. He
considered quitting music, but a record by similarly-injured jazz
guitarist Django Reinhardt encouraged him to keep playing. After failing
at playing right-handed, Iommi strung his guitars with banjo strings
and wore plastic covers over the two damaged fingers. He made the covers
by melting plastic bottles and dipping his fingers in while the plastic
was soft enough to be shaped. He then completed the easier tasks of
forming Black Sabbath, selling 20+ million albums, and becoming a highly
influential guitarist himself.
2
Rick Allen
Auto Accident- full arm amputation
Driving
to a 1984 New Year’s Eve party, Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen was
thrown from his Corvette, severing his left arm. Doctors initially
reattached the arm, but were forced to remove it due to infection. Soon
after, Allen and some engineers designed an electronic drum kit allowing
his left foot to play the snare. Drum manufacturer Simmons built a kit
to the needed specs, and Allen returned to the stage in 1986, only two
years after the accident. In August 1987, the band released their fourth
album, Hysteria, which sold over 20 million copies.
1
Ludwig Van Beethoven
Deafness
As
a child, he practiced to stop his father beating his mother. As a man,
his name is synonymous with musical mastery, and he wrote the most
famous notes of music in the history of man. According to FlameHorse
(who knows his classical music), “(Beethoven’s) finest works are also
the finest works of their kind in music history: the 9th Symphony, the
5th Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto, the Late Quartets, and the
Missa Solemnis. And he achieved all this despite being completely deaf
for the last 25 years of his life”. I have selected the third movement
of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata because most people familiar with the
sonata only know the first movement.
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