John Garza has been a musician for most of his life starting as a child performing at weddings at parties, television and even for the Consulate of Mexico. At age 12 John began to learn to play guitar and was soon proficient enough to begin writing songs, writing his first song at age 13. After a stint with a couple of garage bands John’s career as a musician took off in his early teens when joining the band The Midnight Shift. Winning Houston Texas battle of the bands in 1967 and performing at many venues, Midnight Shift began opening for local bands like The Moving Sidewalks (later to become ZZ Top), Fever Tree, and Fungus Amungus. At the same time John began to branch out in to the Folk Music world in Houston and started playing at many local Folk Venues. To find out more about John Garza’s music career go to The Musician.
John as Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” 2012
The Actor
John’s acting career started at about the same time as his musical one did; although it took a back seat to music, the theatre followed John around like a puppy in the shadows. One of John’s earliest roles was as a tin soldier in the musical production of Cinderella at the Houston Theatre Center; later that year he appeared as Little Boy Blue in Babes in Toyland. After that brief stint with Theatre, John’s career in acting was to take a hiatus for quite a while.
In high school John met June Smith, who was not only an excellent teacher but was also an incredible Director. Under her tutelage John performed in several shows. In Once Upon a Mattress, he was the Minstrel. In Gypsy he performed as Tulsa . He was in a production called Carl Cole and Company, a mixture of Cole Porter music and Carl Sandburg poetry. In a summer stock production, John and four other top performers were in A Cole Porter Review. The next year he was in a play based on the book The Me Nobody Knows, and later that year Jacque Brel is Alive and Well was performed by the same four performers from the Cole Porter Review. Those years left him bitten by the Theatre bug, but the bug again had to wait for another long time. To read more about John’s acting career go to The Actor
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By Judith Reynolds
Special to the Herald
Article Last Updated: Tuesday, June 03, 2014 9:33a
