Who is Richie Sambora?
The man we today know as Richie Sambora was born as Richard Stephen Sambora on July 11th, 1959 in Perth Amboy, NJ. He grew up in Woodbridge, also in New Jersey. As a kid, Richie Sambora played and took lessons on piano, saxophone and trumpet. At 14 he started on the guitar, being inspired by people like Eric Clapton, Johnny Winter, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. Richie played with many local bands and actually toured with Joe Cocker for a while and even audtioned for KISS but didn’t get the job, and he now claims he never really wanted it. A band Richie was in, “Message” , also included Alec John Such, and the recorded an album “Lessons”, which wasn’t released until recently. Richie met Jon at a concert to promote the collection album with Runaway on it. Basically Richie told Jon, that he was the guitar player they needed, and although Snake Sabo, who was with Jon at the time was good, he was too young. Jon didn’t like Richie too much, but Alec talked Jon into trying it out with Richie. Aft
