OUR BAND LEADER - BERNIE WILLIAMS

BERNIE WILLIAMS discovered his love for baseball and music at roughly the same time.  At the age of eight, he fell in love with the sounds of a flamenco guitar his merchant-marine father brought home from Spain. Five years later he attended the special performance arts school Escuela Libre de Musica in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

In 1987, just after high school, Bernie was signed by the New York Yankees. He worked his way through the ranks making his Major League debut with the Yankees in May, 1991.  During his 16-year career patrolling the centerfield for the Yankees, he became both a four-time World Series Champion and a five-time All Star. In May 2015, the Yankees retired Bernie’s uniform number 51.

Bernie demonstrated how serious his musical pursuit was with the release of his first album, The Journey Within in 2003; which was met with both strong critical praise and instant chart success- reaching #3 on BILLBOARDS’s “Contemporary Jazz Chart.”

His second album, Moving Forward, spawned two consecutive BILLBOARD #1 singles; Go For It  and Ritmo de Otono. The album was nominated for a Latin Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Album in 2009. In addition to performing, Bernie spent considerable time authoring his first book, Rhythms of the Game: The Link Between Music and Athletic Performance.  You can find Bernie online at www.bernie51.com, on Twitter @bw51official and on Facebook at BernieWilliamsOfficial and Instagram at BernieWilliamsOfficial. 

THE ALL-STAR BAND

MITCH CHAKOUR - keyboard

CLIFF GOODWIN - Guitarist

WOLF GINANDeS - BASS

BILL HOLLOWMAN - SAX / VOCALS

MARTY RICHARDS - DRUMS