Biographies
John “Papa Nuch” Carnuccio
Guitar and Vocals
“Johnny was a schoolboy when he heard his first Beatles’ song. Love Me Do, I think it was and from there it didn’t take him long. Johnny got a guitar, used to it play every night. Now he’s in a rock and roll outfit and everything’s alright.”
These lyrics from Shooting Star by Bad Company could have been written about John. Although there is a recording of him singing the Tony Bennet classic, Because of You, when he was two and a half years old, his real interest in music didn’t start to show until around age twelve when he picked up his father’s ukulele and taught himself to play. He also found that soundtracks from certain movies, especially Lawrence of Arabia and West Side Story, really moved him. However, it wasn’t until he heard the Beatles for the first time and saw them perform on the Ed Sullivan Show that he knew he wanted to become a musician. He got his first guitar, an inexpensive acoustic model, for Christmas and, along with a couple of friends who were developing a similar interest, began to learn to play. Every Friday night after Boy Scouts, the three would get together to jam on the only song they knew at the time, Guitar Boogie. Soon they began to learn a few Beatles’ songs and decided it was time to form a band. This first band, named Black and the Blues, played school dances, weddings, and community socials and carnivals.
After high school, college beckoned and Black and the Blues disbanded with the members going their separate ways off to college, jobs, or the military. Although away at college, John found that he still had to play and sing. It was the late ‘60s and there was so much great new rock and roll music out that his desire to play was over-powering his desire to be in school. He would hitch-hike the ninety miles home each Friday night so that he could play with his band. Initially, this was a band called Scintilla, followed by Sydney. John eventually left school to pursue his music career full time and formed a band called Snuffy with his best friend and drummer/guitarist, Paul Micarelli. Snuffy stayed together for about five years, playing clubs and concert venues throughout the New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware area. They also traveled to Alabama to record songs for an album that, unfortunately, was never released. They did, however, release a single record that was distributed in the Philadelphia area on the Redcap Records label. During this period, John honed his skills as a songwriter as well as a singer and guitarist - even teaching himself to play piano.
When Snuffy broke up, it was the mid-1970s and John decided it was time to get a “real” job to properly support his growing young family. He began his career in manufacturing management. In the meantime, he and Paul set out as an acoustic duo playing local clubs on weekends and performing cover versions of their favorite songs. One night, they shared the stage with Paul’s sister Kat. The sound that emerged when their voices blended in three part harmonies was absolute magic! From that point on, they became an acoustic trio and soon added bass, drums, and John put his electric guitar back on. The John, Paul and Kat Band was born. This band stayed together until the mid-1980’s when, succumbing to the pressures of a growing career and family matters, John dropped out of the music business. In 1989 he moved his family to Oklahoma to pursue his management career and a new phase of his life began.
Other than occasionally playing for family or friends, John barely touched his guitar and his musical career was all but dead. However sometime in the mid 1990’s, the members of the choir at his church, having heard about his musical past, approached him about joining the choir and helping them establish a musical program geared towards the youth of the parish. All of a sudden John had a purpose to play again and the music began to happen once more, though only at mass on Sundays. Eventually this led to meeting musicians from other parishes and especially Mike “Dudz” Dudzinski, the fantastic bassist for zero2sixty. Mike told him he had a band called Fusion that played occasionally but they had recently lost their guitarist and would John consider joining them. John agreed to give it a try and that’s how he met Michelle Lopez, the outstanding vocalist with zero2sixty, who was also a recent addition to Fusion. After performing together with an assortment of other musicians the band changed its name to zero2sixty and the current line-up developed.
John lives in Oklahoma City and is back “in-the-groove” playing guitar and singing with zero2sixty. He is also once again writing new songs that he hopes to release on a new CD within the coming year.
