I started playing guitar at age 10. By the time I was 15 years old I was playing in bars, backing up groups like the Shirelles, Little Anthony and the Imperials, The Ronettes, Gladys Knight, The Temptations, and so many others that I can't even list them here. When I was in my early twenties I played in a group call The Illusion. We recorded three albums and did our first tour opening for Mitch Ryder. We went on to open shows for Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Chicago, Sly and the Family Stone, The Allman Brothers Band, and many others. My career continued over the next 15 years recording nine more albums with different bands. I played with Hall and Oates, Wiggy Bits, Network, Ellen Shipley, and Aviator. I appeared on TV shows such as Phyllis Diller, American Bandstand, Shindig, and Saturday Night Live. I toured the U.S. in cars, campers, buses, and planes living life in the fast lane.

In 1989 I moved to upstate, N.Y., with my wife and two children who were four, and six months old at the time. We wanted to get away from that life style, and give our kids a clean wholesome look at life before they had to deal with the world. We built a log home on top of a mountain in the small town of Worcester, N.Y.. It was very beautiful there and we were very happy in our new environment. I was teaching guitar at that point as well as playing weddings on the weekends. One day a woman called and asked if I would give her lessons. She said she was legally blind and wasn't able to find a teacher that would come to her house. I told her that I would be happy to, and proceeded to teach her on a weekly basis. What I didn't know was that this woman, Rev. Elayne Dwight, was a Pentecostal minister.

I was raised a Catholic but stopped going to church in my teens. I searched many other avenues through my musical career like self relaxation, mediums, card readers, and astrologers looking for truth. I was looking in all the wrong places, but God had a plan.

After a few months of lessons, Elayne starting talking to me about the Lord. Our guitar lessons turned into Bible studies and one year later I accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior and was baptized in Goodyear Lake, in Oneonta, N.Y..

The Lord has given me a gift to play guitar and write music. I am now sharing this gift, using it for his will and his purpose. All of my unsaved life I played for me, now I play for Him.
God Bless you, Rich Cerniglia