MIMI BETINIS

Singer-songwriter Mimi Betinis has been obsessed with music since early childhood. Growing up in suburban Oak Park, Illinois, the Betinis house was usually filled with the sounds of his mother’s imported Latin, Greek and classical records. “Everything from Mariachi to Vivaldi,” says Mimi, when asked about his early musical influences. “I even loved Eydie Gorme and Trio Los Panchos.” The British Invasion of the mid ‘60s impacted Mimi forever though–especially at age 12, when his Mom took him and his sister (in the family’s Pontiac Bonneville) to see the Beatles play live at Comiskey Park. “The year 1966 was ‘the year’ for me,” he says today of the experience. Within a few short months, he’d seen the Yardbirds (with both Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page on guitar) at Chicago’s Civic Opera House–and the Jimi Hendrix Experience play there as well. Soon after, Mimi taught himself to play guitar and keyboards, and began writing his own three-minute pop-rock songs.

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