ST PAUL, Minn. — It's been said that music is the strongest form of magic. And, it must be true, because every time Larry Lowery sits down at the piano at Regions Hospital, he seems to cast a spell.
"It's calming for patients, calming for staff. Yeah. It just helps kind of take that weight that we carry all day long and displaces it by hearing that music,” says Allison Wienke, an occupational therapist in the hospital.
As special as Larry is to Regions, it is an equally special place to him. It was six-and-a-half years ago that he walked through the door. Not as a patient, but both as a music student and teacher.
“I take the song, I'll listen to it over and over and over again, until I was able to do the melody through the whole song, and I'll just pick it up from there on piano,” says Larry.
He uses no sheet music. All his songs come from memory. Larry, at the time 62 years old, taught himself to play piano by ear. For hours he would sit in front of the keys at Regions and practice, inspired by romance and a woman named Gloria.
“My fiancée was very appreciative of Valentine's Day because she had never had one, you know. I had hired a violinist and a photographer to take pictures and everything, you know, so when a violinist playing the violin, I said, 'Oh, man, this should really be me,'” says Larry.
It was at that moment a musician was born. Larry's music fills the hospital several times a week where he volunteers his time. So you can imagine when Gloria got sick, his connection to Regions grew stronger.
"I thought that there's a possibility that I may lose her. So be prepared. But I didn't, you know, so like when she made it to that surgery, and I wanted to hug a doctor really hard. I became emotional and it led me to write the song “Regions Indelibly Beautiful” because I appreciated what they did for her,” he says.
Add composer to his list of accomplishments. Larry has a full-time job as a custodian with St. Paul schools, and now playing gigs as a piano man.
But somehow he still finds time to come back, share his music and his magic. And he reminds us it all started, not with his fingers, but with his ears.
“You learn when you listen. You can't learn anything good talking,” he says.
And when it comes to retirement, Larry says no thanks. You can also catch him playing piano at Menard’s in St. Paul and the Von Mauer in Roseville.
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