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When
7:00-10:00pm 1/26/2012
Description
Dear Cigar Factory Outlet Customers,
It is with great pride that I would like to announce the first scheduled events of our 2012 CIGARS & MORE EVENT SCHEDULE. Beginning Thursday January 19th and every Thursday thereafter for the next 8 weeks we will be featuring the music of a World Renowned musician. It was by pure accident that I met him as he was perusing the aisles of our humidor in Sterling Heights. After enjoying great conversation, a Padron, 2 Espresso, and a couple of drinks he has agreed to perform in our store!
Michele Pugliese-Ramo was born in in the Italian Mediterranean fishing town of Mazara Del Vallo, Italy – on the coast of Sicily. He grew up in a small village of 300. His playgrounds were vast grape-vineyards, rocky hillsides and olive orchards… sheep & rock-lizards. He played guitar with the barbers in the little town square and hid his school books in the fields of ancient volcanic caves because he only wanted to ‘play music’ – not go to school! At age 13 he entered music conservatory where he took up violin studies. By 17 he had his first professional contract with the Italian State Opera House”Teatro Massimo” in Palermo. After five years in various Italian state symphony orchestras at age 23, Michéle, always the ‘independent doer’, made musical shock waves within his circles by quitting and moving to the United States to pursue his work as a composer and instrumentalist in jazz. His first stop: New York City. Unable to speak English and soon out of money he went to Detroit where he knew a friend from his town. For the next twelve years Detroit was his home where he was befriended by Jazz greats such as trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, pianists Harold Mckinney, Ken Cox and Teddy Harris Jr., drummers Roy Brooks and Lawrence G. Williams … It was here he continued on the guitar and put the violin away for ten years. He met singer Heidi Hepler who had been living and performing in Rome, Italy… She heard the violin one day… Well, it is out of the case now! In 1994 he married Heidi Helper when she returned home to Michigan after living and performing in Rome, Italy. He spent the next 12 years playing in New York City and in particular all of the Great Cigar Clubs in the city. He has become great friends with Rocky, Avo, Michael Perales, Jonathon Drew, Christian Eiroa, and every other notable icon in the cigar industry. It is our good fortune that he has recently moved back to Detroit reuniting his wife with her family.
I don’t have to tell you that for the 8 weeks Michele is playing for us, it will be standing room only on Thursday nights! So instead of sitting home during these winter months, get out to the CFO Thursday nights and experience one of the finest musicians in the world!
- Cigar Dan
