Don Cunningham, Jazz musician and Las Vegas resident was born in 1931 in St. Louis, Missouri. As a child he was heavily influenced by blues and jazz musicians such as BB King, Count Basie, and Ella Fitzgerald. Growing up in St. Louis Cunningham worked shining shoes and cleaning steps going to white neighborhoods working inside taverns. He received saxophone lessons from a family friend and joined the band attending a segregated high school.

Tony F. Sanchez III was born in the Las Vegas’ Women’s Hospital. It was 1966 and the plot of land the hospital sat on near Eastern and Sahara streets was considered rural. It was on the desert of the east Las Vegas that young Tony would grow up, graduate from Valley High School, and then graduate from University of Nevada, Las Vegas.