Rick Cua

From the mid-to-late 1940s, Buz Cua, an accomplished guitarist, performed in a military band; with The House Warmers on a weekday radio show on WNDR; and six nights a week in a band at the Eastwood Sports Center, where he first met his wife.

After he married, Buz gave up performing to teach guitar, becoming one of the most respected guitar instructors in the Syracuse area.

Rick Cua (born December 3, 1948) is an American Christian rock singer, songwriter, bassist, author and ordained minister.

Frederick "Rick" R. Cua was born in Syracuse, NY, December 3, 1948, to Basilio "Buz" and Rita Rivoli Cua.

The eldest of five children, Rick has one brother, Nick, and three sisters: Christy, Luanne, and Joanne.

Theirs was a musical family.

By age 14, Cua was playing bass for gigs in Syracuse, and from 1965 to 1980, he performed in Syracuse bands The Legends, The Campus Walkers, The Larry Arlotta Trio, Dove and C.R.A.C. In 1980, Cua joined national Southern rock band Outlaws and stayed with Huey Thomasson, Henry Paul and gang until 1983.

Interestingly enough, she also was an avid golfer, a skill she learned from her father, and a tournament champion in the area.

Rick Cua

President, Amerigo Vespucci Society

Recording Secretary:

Diana Cua

http://italiansinnashville.net/officers_corner.html

Paper: Syracuse Herald-Journal (NY)

Title: RITA R. CUA, 73 –

WINNER OF SIX GOLF CHAMPIONSHIPS <

He is a former member of the Southern rock band, Outlaws, whom he joined in 1980, but left in 1983 to pursue a full-time career in contemporary Christian music, the year after, wherein he gained popularity throughout most of the 1980s as a leather-jacket-wearing rocker with an arena rock sound featuring big, shout-along choruses.

After recording with Reunion and Sparrow records, he signed to Reunion in 1988, where his works began to take on a softer, more radio-friendly tone that included "sentimental ballads and pop-rock anthems in the style of Michael Bolton."

"One time, I went out there and I concentrated on every hole and I came back with an 89. For me, that was outstanding and I was tired of the concentration. One of our friends just came off the 18th hole and said, `Your wife just shot 85.' That's the way it was."

Cua left Reunion in 1992 after just over a decade of radio airplay including six No. 1 Christian radio songs, creating his own label, UCA Records, on which he recorded three studio albums in the 1990s but received little radio play.

He was nominated for a Dove Award and has received various other awards and recognition.

Rita Cua (d. January 1995; cancer) played piano and sang.

Rick remembers, "Our uncles would come and play the mandolin and sing the Italian songs. Our mom used to sing."

Coming from an Italian family, Cua's first instrument was an accordion.

He, however, moved on to try the piano, trumpet, and clarinet, and of course, with his father being an instructor of the instrument, the guitar, which Cua admits he didn't play very well.

So he took his father's advice who told him if never wanted to be without work, then he should play bass guitar.

That instrument stuck, and so did rock music.

Date: January 17, 1995

Rita Rivoli Cua, six-time women's golf champion at Lakeshore Yacht and Country Club, died Monday of cancer at Crouse Irving Memorial Hospital.

She was 73 and lived at 211 Grant Blvd., Syracuse.

Mrs. Cua was in her teens when she began to play golf.

She learned the game from her father, Fred Rivoli, and the late golf pro Augie Nardone.

"She played nice and easy. I could never beat her although I tried," her husband, Buz, said today.

Cua took a hiatus from recording in 1998 and went to work as vice president of the creative department at EMI Christian Music Publishing, where he stayed until 2003.

He focused on managing his own two companies: Rick Cua Entertainment, which manages artists and works in music publishing, film and TV licensing; and All for the King Music, offering coaching and inspiration to lay musicians through workshops and free electronic delivery of original worship music.

Celebrating his 25th year in ministry, Cua released his twelfth album, Won't Fade Away, in 2007.

It was his first album in ten years.

Cua's father, his veteran guitar teacher, Basilio "Buz" Cua, died on May 19, 2009, at the age of 90 in his home town of Syracuse, New York.

Cua was unable to go to his father's funeral, due to successful prostate cancer surgery.