Dr. Jack Rigg finished college but chose music over continuing to attend medical school, until 20 years later when he looked at what he wanted in his life. Charmain Z. Brackett Dr. Jack Rigg’s path to becoming the head of the TBI program at the Neuroscience and Rehabilitation Center at DDEAMC did not follow a traditional route.

“I didn’t go to medical school until my 40s,” said Rigg. “I was a musician in rock bands and played on 22 albums.”

Rigg even has a gold record for the song, Joan Crawford, which he wrote and played guitar on for the Blue Oyster Cult in the early 1980s.

Rigg’s journey to music and medicine began as a child after hearing a band at his school.

“I saw the trumpet, and I knew I had to play it. I told my parents. We rented a trumpet, and I got lessons on it,” he said.

In high school, his musical attention turned to guitar, which he taught himself to play, and he began to develop an interest in science and math.

“When I was 16, I got a job at Henry Ford Hospital to make money for an electric guitar and amplifier,” he said.

When he started college, he majored in pre-med with the intention of becoming a doctor; he also started playing in rock and roll bands. By the time he reached his senior year of college, he had decided medical school wasn’t for him; he wanted to be a full-time musician.

He played in some bands in his native Detroit, but after a couple of years, he moved to New York City to pursue music full-time. He played with David Johansen before joining the Blue Oyster Cult.

“I played with a lot of other bands that were big in Europe,” he said.

He did arena concert tours and spent many years on the road.

By the early 1990s, Rigg met his wife and began to re-evaluate his life.

His apartment had a recording studio and motorcycle in it. An amplifier wasn’t an ideal place for a baby to sleep, he said.

He continued his musical career by writing jingles and off-Broadway shows, and then decided to look into pursuing an old dream. He had a 20 year-old college degree and enrolled in college in New York to brush up on his science.

When choosing a medical school, one showed promise.

“The Albert Einstein College of Medicine was proud that a member of Sha Na Na had received his medical degree there,” he said.

At the age of 47, Rigg was going to the medical school where former Sha Na Na member Scott “Santini” Powell studied. Powell is now an orthopedic surgeon in California.

Medical school presented new decisions to Rigg as to what field he would study. He was always interested in the brain, head and neck. He considered vascular surgery.

“The lifestyle was similar to being out on the road,” he said.

So he considered sports medicine and performing arts medicine before delving into the area of traumatic brain injury.

After medical school, he did a fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center with Dr. Ross Zafonte in 2005 and 2006, and he came to the Augusta area to work at a rehabilitation hospital.

Zafonte moved and the Earle P. and Ida S. Charlton Chairman of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School, and he offered Rigg a position there.

He was considering it when he learned Fort Gordon was opening a TBI clinic.

“My wife wanted to stay in Georgia,” he said.

Although Rigg doesn’t travel with a band any longer, he still plays some locally, and there are patients who really get excited when they find out their doctor was part of the Blue Oyster Cult and wrote Joan Crawford, which is considered a classic by many.

“One of the Soldiers told me ‘That’s my favorite song.’ Another one had it as his ring tone,” he said.