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Unfortunate timing on a visit to Liverpool in 2015…
I’m Joe, living just outside Atlanta, Georgia. I was a career pilot, with 14 years in the US Air Force followed by 29 years flying for Delta Air Lines. I retired in 2019, which turned out to be a very good year to finish an airline career.
My last visit to the UK was in November 2015, which unfortunately was before I discovered the MonaLisa Twins on YouTube. It was a week-long trip with my two adult sons to attend some Premier League soccer games. We spent three days in Liverpool. Besides the football match, we enjoyed the Beatles bus tour and an evening at the Cavern Club. The problem was I can’t remember who was playing that evening, so it obviously wasn’t MLT. A little research revealed we picked a night when MLT was in Coventry playing with Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel. I didn’t know what we had missed at the time, but it is extremely frustrating in hindsight! I still hope to someday catch MLT live, especially if they ever go on a North American tour.
I was finally introduced to the MonaLisa Twins on YouTube because of their outstanding covers of the music I grew up with and loved. I soon discovered their original songs which equally impressed me – “June”, “Close To You”, and “Still A Friend Of Mine” are probably my favorites. I’m continually amazed by the production quality of this four-person, family team. Their videos are now a large part of my daily entertainment. I will normally select one video to start and then let YouTube put together a mix. It’s not only very entertaining, but presents an impressive career retrospective for MLT – jumping between young Mona and Lisa singing in Australia, to themed music videos, to MLT club performances, to recent duo sessions, etc.
I’ve been a member of the MLT club for two months now and I’ve been enjoying everything about it. I love both the music related sections such as the Behind the Scenes videos and What’s On the Table, but also the non-music items such as the Out and About content. I had to get over the feeling that I’m just a 67-year-old version of a 1960’s teenybopper reading Tiger Beat magazine, but I quickly realized I was okay with that.
I once flew a four-day trip with a copilot who was a Julliard graduate horn player. He had lived in New York City for several years doing fill in work with the New York Philharmonic as well as playing for numerous Broadway shows. It sounded great and I remember basically asking “What the heck are you doing flying jets with me?”. His answer was essentially that he had reached the point in his life where he really valued a steady paycheck. He had obviously gone down a different musical path than Mona and Lisa, but it made me appreciate how difficult it must be to really make a career as a musical performer. Anyway, I hope I never get on a commercial airliner and see Mona and Lisa in the cockpit, although I am sure the announcements would be in perfect harmony!
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3 Replies
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Hi there Joe, Welcome to being here, for the last 2 months, happy you joined and loved your intro about yourself, , etc, interesting it was to 4ead. I look forward to more of your postings, and enjoy exploring all the fab facets of the offerings of the MLT Club, and like you, my dream is that I can see MLT live . … Greetings from Canada by the way ☮
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Hi Joe,
A big warm welcome to the Club, and really enjoyed reading your post! It sounds like the most awesome career anyone could have. I bet you have a lot of fascinating flight stories over your decades long career as a pilot in the US Air Force and Commercial airlines. It looks like things did indeed turn out in your favour to retire before the covid craziness. I hope you get to catch Mona and Lisa live one day, and in the meantime enjoy all the great content here. There is so much wonderful content here on top of all the awesome music. It looks like you already have started.
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Hi Joe,
Thanks for saying hi! It’s lovely to finally “meet” you after your first couple of months here in the MLT Club. We appreciate your support! 🙂
It’s unfortunate that you missed us at the Cavern Club during your last UK trip, but we hope you’ll get another chance to see us live one day! We still don’t have any solid plans for when we’ll hit the stage again but if we ever set anything up the MLT Club members will be the very first to know!
Our dad actually graduated from aeronautical engineering school (he thought of becoming a pilot before he made the switch to building his own recording studio 🙂 ) so naturally we grew up with planes/aviation always being a big topic in our lives (here’s an example 😉). We are glad you retired at a time where things were still functioning, and are sure you must feel for your colleagues who are currently struggling! Thanks for sharing part of your story with us, sounds like you have led a very exciting life so far!
Thanks for being here and for being groovy,
Mona & Lisa
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