Dorothy Motto plays "Smile" at Golden Buddha Restaurant in April 2012

Our Golden Buddha Restaurant gig was supposed to last until mid 2015 so it was quite a shock to us when the doors were locked one Saturday morning in August 2012 for overdue rent by the owner. Apparently, despite hundreds of customers seven nights a week and at least 600 customers every lunch hour for the most famous Dim Sum in the city of Phoenix, gambling casinos became a greater interest to that owner. At least that's the rumor. I was never able to confirm it. There was also a rumor about the bank no longer lending out for salaries in advance.

 This video was take four months previous to that closing. We began this seven-nights-per-week gig in 2007 after starting to play out in 2005, and that, after Schroeders Organ and Piano sales/teaching shut down in 2002 after 100 years in business in Phoenix where Dorothy worked since 1987 and me since 1993. I guess it's true, that all good things come to an end. So... Smile, apparently written by Charlie Chaplin and one of Dorothy's go-to tunes. [MP3 AUDIO-10MB] [MPEG4 VIDEO-17MB] [OTHER formats] 3 minutes

Note the use of the portable keyboard on Dorothy's left that we used to generate a gentle background drum machine sound and lead strings. This use of a keyboard here in this venue was very very tricky for reasons I won't get into here but it's actually a precursor to the Rick and Dorothy Piano-Keyboard Hour that succeeded during the 2012 to 2019 phase of our gig work at retirement residences. I'm currently working on an act that continues our piano-keyboard combo at this writing, based on that.