GOOD NEIGHBORS: CARL PAGE
Trop Rockin’ Salt Springs resident Carl Page discovers that life can take unexpected turns into a new chapter, leading to a never-imagined music career. BY JOANN GUIDRY
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isten to singer/songwriter Carl Page’s “Somewhere East of A1A” and you’ll want to jump in your car and head to Daytona Beach. Can’t do that? Then just watch the song’s YouTube video and Carl, actually singing and playing his guitar on the beach, can be your surrogate. Either way, you’ve been smitten by the tropical rock vibe. “Trop rock” as defined by the Tropical Rock Music Association is a genre of popular music that “incorporates elements of rock and roll, country, Caribbean, reggae, and other musical genres to create a laid-back or escapist state of mind.” The genre’s roots trace to the 1980s, led by Jimmy Buffett & The Coral Reefer Band, the Beach Boys, and Bertie Higgins. The prevalence of the Parrot Head clubs, formed by Buffett fans, spurred the growth of trop rock into the thriving genre it is today. Carl’s “Somewhere East of A1A” was a 2017 Top 5 hit on a weekly top 40 countdown of independent internet radio stations. In August 2018, Carl scored a #1 trop rock internet radio hit with his “Key Lime Wine.” The latter is also the title of Carl’s first trop rock CD, released this past July. ALL OF THIS IS A BIT AMAZING considering that before he became a charting tropical rock artist, Carl dis-
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played scant musical aptitude. “My family was not musical at all,” says Carl, 63, who spent his early years in Massachusetts and New Hampshire before moving to Miami when he was 10. “I played the trumpet in junior high, but wasn’t very good at it. I tried to play the guitar a couple of times, but could never get the hang of it. So that was the end of me trying to do anything with music.” It wasn’t that Carl didn’t like music. During his growing-up years in Miami, K.C. and The Sunshine Band was one of his favorites. Then Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine caught his attention, particularly their Caribbean music. “I’ve always liked all kinds of music, from rock to country to any music with that Caribbean vibe,” says Carl,
OCALA’S GOOD LIFE retirement redefined
who served four years in the United States Marines and then owned a pest control business for 20 years. “But I most certainly never thought I’d ever have any kind of a career in music.” In 1999, Carl and his wife Mel moved from Jacksonville to Salt Springs to care for her ill father. When Mel’s father died in 2000, he left her his home and property and the Pages became Salt Springs residents. Mel’s father also left her his guitar, a Gibson made in the 1940s, along with his harmonica. “Not long after Mel’s dad passed, I kept looking at that Gibson guitar. Then one day, I just picked it up and started playing,” recalls Carl, who began a lawn service business when the couple moved to Salt Springs. “I used an auto tune machine to hear what
