The Story
With a music career that spans a lifetime, Gregg De Lorto combines his passion for music and guitars with new songs that celebrate his reason to write, play and sing. This is the love story everyone dreams about, imagines, and longs for.
California native Gregg De Lorto, the great grandson of two Italian-born musicians and old world violin makers, began playing the guitar when he was nine. Supported by family and taught by friends, he was first influenced by surf music, The Ventures, The Beatles, and other artists and styles of the sixties.
He showcased his talent performing at schools and local venues, all the while increasing his musical range and evolving as a promising musician. By 14, he was playing professionally, and then joined the popular ABC Paramount recording group The Spats. His focus unexpectedly turned to jazz when he first heard Wes Montgomery’s “Bump’n On Sunset.”
In 1969, Gregg began attending church, where he met the woman who would eventually inspire the music he writes and sings today. Sharon and Gregg became friends although they had separate paths to follow, they never forgot each other. Sharon recognized even then that Gregg was a phenomenal musician and she became a fan.
As Gregg followed his passion, he studied and learned the styles of the guitar greats including B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Kenney Burrell, Wes Montgomery and Charlie Christian, and became a representative for Gibson Guitar Company. During this time he married and raised his family.
Sharon moved north to pursue her education, and eventually got married and raised her sons.
As time passed, Gregg faced medical challenges that not only threatened his music, but also his life. Vocal cord surgery weakened his voice, and in 2007, he faced a perilous surgery to remove a rare brain tumor. Before surgery he had the main theme for a song that he titled, “Ode to Charlie Christian.” That song would prove paramount in his recovery as he composed the rest of the song as he was healing, one baby step at a time. A year after the surgery he carried his Heritage Golden Eagle and performed the completed “Ode to Charlie Christian” for his world- class neurosurgeon and staff. But Gregg faced one more big challenge when he lost his wife of 35 years to cancer.
Unaware of the hardships Gregg had experienced, Sharon saw his website and sent him an email one year after his surgery with no reply. She was surprised when he answered her 10 months later. Through email they rediscovered a friendship that started nearly four decades earlier.
Gregg and Sharon finally made the decision to meet face-to-face in 2010 while Gregg was traveling for Heritage Guitars. When they finally met, Sharon remembering the early years, asked him to play an original composition he had written in the seventies. According to Gregg, “this uncorked the bottle.” Soon after, he began to hear love songs as if they had already been written. The first song, “The Rose of Sharon, My Jewell and Always Will Be” was his gift to the woman that has given him a second chance at love, and a second chance at a new life. No doubt, he is writing the music, arrangements and lyrics that are destined to be counted among the classic love songs of all time.
One year to the day after Gregg responded to Sharon’s auspicious email the couple celebrated their wedding and danced their first dance to “Can You Imagine a Love Like This,” a song Gregg and a friend had written in the 70s and Gregg revised just weeks before. Performed on a variety of guitars, this music provides the perfect landscape to tell the story of their timeless love.
As you might have guessed, Sharon is Gregg’s one number fan.
