From the time he was a kid in Coney Island, Ronald Lupoff had a gift.

“I was born with what they call a golden ear,” Lupoff, 75, told the Miami Herald last week, sitting on the bed of his rundown apartment in a stretch of bare-bones buildings tucked between I-95 and Florida’s Turnpike in Miami.

In other words, Lupoff has perfect pitch. If a note on a piano is even slightly off-key, or the sound quality on a record player is subpar, “I can’t stand the tone of that,” he said.

Under different circumstances, Lupoff’s talent might have led him to stardom — or at least steady work. But there were roadblocks every step of the way.

It started with an emotionally abusive father, he said. Lupoff took piano lessons as a kid, and he was good at it. But his father quickly put a stop to it, citing physical disabilities his son had.

The truth, Lupoff said, is that his father “got jealous.”

“He told my teacher not to give me any more lessons,” Lupoff said. “That’s the kind of stuff I had to deal with all my life.”

Still, Lupoff managed to teach himself, mostly by ear. He would listen to professional performances, then use a tape recorder to record himself playing the songs and hear where he made mistakes.

“I worked my way up to higher levels,” Lupoff said.

He could play Beethoven’s sixth and seventh symphonies, he said, as well as works by Frédéric Chopin. His favorite musician was Arthur Rubenstein, the Polish-American pianist known for his Chopin interpretations.

“When he played Chopin, it was a religious experience,” Lupoff said.

In 1968, Lupoff moved from Brooklyn to Miami Beach with his father and brother. He managed to avoid being drafted during the Vietnam War, he said, but afterward it was hard to get a job as a non-veteran.

With his golden ear and his exhaustive knowledge of pianos, Lupoff tried to find work as a piano tuner. He got a few neighbors as clients, but it wasn’t enough to make a living. He worked at a gas station, he said, and once sold fish for a crooked seafood dealer.

“He would cut sharks and sell them as swordfish,” Lupoff said.

Today, Lupoff has spent almost two decades in the same apartment complex. His place is messy — papers and pill bottles are strewn across his bed, chairs and counters.

Beneath an empty soda can, a notebook and plastic bags, a dusty piano keyboard sits atop a small stand.

Lupoff used to play it, but the keyboard has been “kaput” for the last few years, Lupoff said. But he still has books of sheet music, including one from renowned Cuban composer and pianist Ernesto Lecuona.

Now, he’s hoping donations will help him buy a new keyboard with 88 keys — the old one has 61 — and allow him to reconnect with his first love.

“Trying to play my music would help me to rehabilitate myself,” Lupoff said. “It’s good for my nerves. Good for the soul.”

Sandi Dioli Kumm, who works for the North Miami Foundation for Senior Citizens’ Services and visits Lupoff often, has never seen Lupoff play. But she knows what music has meant for him.

“Music has been that one constant in a life of inconsistency,” she said last week at Lupoff’s apartment. Kumm nominated him for Wish Book.

Lupoff rarely leaves home. He has had all of his toes amputated in multiple surgeries stemming from diabetes-related nerve damage in his arms, legs and feet, and suffers from pain in his feet.

To get down two flights of stairs to leave his apartment complex, Kumm said, Lupoff needs to “fanny scoot.”

“I’m like a whale on a beach,” Lupoff joked.

He spends most of his days at home, reading the newspaper with a magnifying glass or watching TV on a small screen with an antenna and no remote. He’s also hoping to buy a new TV with donated money.

Recently, Lupoff said, he mopped the floors of the apartment by himself while sitting in his wheelchair.

“Good exercise,” he said.

An employee from Meals on Wheels delivers Lupoff’s breakfast and lunch each day, and he has support from Kumm, who he called a “terrific person.”

But for the most part, he’s on his own.

“Living on his minimal Social Security, it’s very difficult to make ends meet,” Kumm said. “By the time rent and electric is paid, there isn’t much left over.”

But economic and physical hardship haven’t stripped Lupoff of his passion for music — or his drive to play whenever it’s possible.

During rehabilitation from a surgery several years ago, he recalled staying at the Villa Maria Nursing Center in North Miami. In the auditorium, there was a beautiful grand piano.

Lupoff said he would wheel himself from his room to the auditorium on the opposite side of the building. Other residents would join him and listen while he played.

“I had an audience around me,” he said.

HOW TO HELP

Wish Book is trying to help hundreds of families in need this year. To donate, pay securely at MiamiHerald.com/wishbook. For information, call 305-376-2906 or email wishbook@miamiherald.com. (The most requested items are often laptops and tablets for school, furniture, and accessible vans.) Read more at MiamiHerald.com/wishbook.