About Nick Kowalczyk

Up on Cyprus Avenue

Bill Shapiro’s passion for music began at the age of 5 with a phonograph player and the song “Mairzy Dotes and Dozy Dotes,” but it didn’t truly ignite until February 1956. That’s when Elvis Presley appeared on national television and Shapiro gave his heart to rock ’n’ roll.   “If you had grown up in the repressed 1950s as I did, Elvis Presley was just off the goddamn wall,” says Shapiro, a transactional attorney with Kansas City’s Dysart, Taylor, Lay, Cotter …