Perfectly crafted cocktails and pianoforte

PIANO GUY, BILL HOLT
PIANO GUY, BILL HOLT

After work on Friday, we stopped by the lobby bar at the Lord Baltimore Hotel for a couple of their extraordinary Long Island Iced Teas and found that The Piano Guy, Bill Holt, was there playing lots of Elton John and some his own compositions.

The place was comfortably busy, the drinks were potent and perfectly made, the music and patter made us feel a bit like we were in Manhattan—it seemed like a good time was being had by all.

If you happen to drop by the Lord Baltimore when you’re downtown—and I urge you to—and if Bill Holt is at the keyboard I hope you’ll ask him about the time he played piano in the East Room of the White House. It’s one of the most delightful, well-told, shaggy-dog stories that I’ve ever heard.

By Stephen Brockelman

As a Sr. Writer at T. Rowe Price, I work with a group of the best copywriters around. We belong to the broader creative team within Enterprise Creative, a part of Corporate Marketing Services. _____________________________________________ A long and winding road: My path to T. Rowe Price was more twisted than Fidelity’s green line. With scholarship in hand, I left Kansas at 18 to study theatre in New York. When my soap opera paychecks stopped coming from CBS and started coming from the show’s sponsor, Proctor & Gamble, I discovered the power of advertising and switched careers. Over the years I’ve owned an ad agency in San Francisco; worked for Norman Lear on All in the Family, Good Times, Sanford and Son, and the rest of his hit shows; and as a member of Directors Guild of America, I directed Desi Arnaz in his last television appearance— we remained friends until his death. In 1988 I began freelancing full time didn’t look back. In January 2012 my rep at Boss Group called and said, “I know you don’t want to commute and writing for the financial industry isn’t high on your wish list, but I have a gig with T. Rowe Price in Owings Mills…” I was a contractor for eight months, drank the corporate Kool-Aid, became a TRP associate that August, and today I find myself smiling more often than not.

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