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11.29.2010
Pianist, Composer John Tesh Gets In The Spirit With King Center Show
If going to John Tesh's concert Wednesday evening at the King Center is anything like talking to him on the phone for 20 minutes, those in the audience will walk away thinking they've got a new best friend.
Known for his work as a composer and as a host for television's "Entertainment Tonight" and "The John Tesh Radio Show: Music and Intelligence for Your Life," Tesh's concert will be 98 percent music and 2 percent "how you can live your life intelligently," he said.
This will be the third visit to the King Center for Tesh, who sings and plays piano. Executive director Steve Janicki said audiences "thoroughly enjoy" his act.
"He's very personable," Janicki said. "And he cares about what he does."
Tesh, 58, is at once friendly and approachable and happy to talk about his faith and life philosophy. The popular radio talk-show host, Emmy Award-winning TV host and Grammy-nominated composer really seems like a nice guy.
"First of all, people who remember me from doing the news in New York City would not describe me as that," he said, laughing.
Majoring in textile chemistry in college, he "got bitten by the television and radio bug" in his junior year. He got a part-time job developing film and eventually became news anchor for a Raleigh, N.C., TV station.
At 19, he took a job with WFTV Channel 9 in Orlando. That lasted six months before he left for Nashville, where he worked for a year and a half with now well-known TV hosts Pat Sajak and Oprah.
"I ended up in New York City in CBS when I was 23 years old," he said. "I had no idea what I was doing. I tried to memorize the New York Times every day so people would think I was smart."
He said the sudden success at a young age went to his head.
"When I got to 'Entertainment Tonight,' I was infected by the Hollywood thing," he said. "It was pretty easy. I had gone from doing the Olympics and working as an investigative reporter for CBS to reading a teleprompter. My biggest challenge was whose birthday was it.
"(I worked) four hours a day, at the most. So the biggest challenge for me was just not getting too full of myself.
"Then I met my wife (actress Connie Sellecca). She said, 'Hey, I'm a Christian. I know you were. Why don't you explore a different way of being a Christian?' Just live your life by that formula. The formula's that's been in the Bible." Back |