Rick Penta on Broken

 

  Cover by Paula Gula

Rick Penta

40359 – My Story Changes

40360 – You Need A Sunshine

Broken Records

Fairlawn, Ohio

Kim Hartz, Arp & Backing Vocals
Greg Tomanek, Drums

 

Recorded At Brittain Square Sound, Monroe Falls, Ohio

Engineered By Eric Broviak

1979

Rick Penta, owner of Rick Penta Furniture Designs

(Mike Cardew/Akron Beacon Journal)

Building custom guitars plucks at heartstrings of furniture maker, (Nov. 30, 2008)
by Mary Beth Breckenridge, Beacon Journal staff writer

 Penta's father, Phil, was a master carpenter who built houses. From the time Penta was a toddler, he said, his dad would take him along with him to job sites. He'd give the boy a red hammer, a box of nails and some wood, and let him pound.

That interest grew when Penta took woodworking classes at Copley High School. And he still has that red hammer.

''That hammer is going to be buried with me,'' he said.

Not too long after he was driving nails to occupy himself while his father worked, he discovered music. He was 7 at the time, and his older brother, Joe, was playing in a band. It inspired him to take up the guitar, an instrument he studied for eight years.

Penta made some recordings and just missed out on a big record deal when his contact at the record company was fired. By that time, though, he had a fiancee, and the musician's life seemed too difficult for someone who wanted to raise a family, he said.

Rick Penta had a previous record issued on Rusty York's Jewel label ("Hit The Road", Jewel #737, 1977).  "You And The Bell" and "Babe" from that album can be heard HERE   And "Suzi Mesciline " is on YouTube.