About Me
Raised in a musical family, I would sneak downstairs after bedtime to listen to my dad jam on the banjo with friends, or listen to my mom play classical piano, or argue with my brothers about with song on the radio was the best, and totally fell in love with music. Did the perfunctory piano lessons until I was 10, then went on to percussion in the school band. Finally took handful of guitar lessons around 12, but learned home on the range and put it up! Kept fooling with guitar until about 14, found my dads no name strat copy and supro amp, thought it was broke because I didn't know about tubes but right before I unplugged it I hit one more E chord and it blew my head off! I was immediately addicted! Got a Honer Les Paul Copy, a Peavey amp, some books with mostly wrong chords (Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, etc) and a book of scales I ordered out of the back of Guitar Player Magazine. Absorbed, read about and pestered my dads friends about playing and theory and spent most of my 15th year in our basement with a pot of coffee and my dads blues records figuring out keys and scales and trying to improvise over everything. Wasn't very good at picking out stuff. Tried, but better at improv so focused more on that. Started a cover band at 16 with my brother on bass and school friends. A true garage band, we played some gigs before everyone drifted off to college. Did a little college, played in an original rock band and a country rock band and a wild party band called Party Doll before spending a crazy, swirling year in L.A. at 19 with couple friends (we quit telling our stories because no one believed them). Didn't go to find a band-though played constantly-but ran into some players that blew me away and made me realize how many great musicians there must be in this world! Out of self preservation I came back to Illinois, found my younger brother Mike had flunked college but also had become a great guitar player with a very different style than me. We put a band together, got a local following and went on the road for a couple years. We learned a lot, had some great times, some miserable times, finally broke up. Mike joined a heavy metal outfit called Ivory Grand and had much success with different incarnations. I got married, backed off playing electric, had 4 kids, went back to school, started playing bluegrass with my dad and daughters. My brother Bill was a budding songwriter and we played some acoustic shows before he moved off to Austin, where he still generally is with his musician wife. He has several excellent cds and I've had the pleasure of playing on a couple of them! I grabbed my jamming buddy Dirk Baker to take Bill's place and we became the Acoust'Cats and had a great 10 year run. Mike joined us on bass, then we slowly added percussionists, drummers, keys, female vocals, it was a great band and great fun. We also started a family band, youngest brother Matt is our best singer and we recorded a cd with all my brothers, my dad on banjo, my daughters Caitlin & Chloe on fiddle and vocals, and close family friend Bill Martin. We did originals, bluegrass, americana and Irish. My dad eventually succumbed to brain cancer in 2006 after a hard fight and that chapter closed. But it was a wonderful, wonderful experience to play and record with my family. Meanwhile got divorced, started dating Bill's sister-in-law Brit Ginn and started jamming with her band (and Bill and her sister Tif) The Ginn Sisters. With them I've had the infinite pleasure of playing and recording original music I really like. At the same time my brother Matt had come into his own as songwriter and band leader and Mike and I helped him with his first two cds. I played in Matt's band The Wild Bunch but my travel with the Ginn Sisters was too hard to schedule around and I bowed out (besides, he already had a stunning guitarist in Marty Williamson).
