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I started out playing guitar at the ripe old age of 8. About a year later I took up the banjo. By age 10 I was playing with a group out of the Tampa, FL. area called The Soggy Bottom Bunch (This was way before the movie was ever thought of!) We played at festivals and potlucks all over the Bay area. At age 15 my parents decided to move back to NY. Within 3 months of being back in the north country I had put together a band called Wheeler Creek with local musicians which is where I first met Jim Rooney. We played for the next 3 years and placed 21st out of 148 bands at the SPBGMA national competition in Nashville. Which incidently was the year Alison Krauss and Union Station won that competition. Right after that, while recording our first album, the band split up. Soon after which, I was called by a band out of the Saratoga Springs, NY area called Summit. I toured all over the north east with them, playing shows as a unit as well as backing band for bluegrass pioneers Bill Keith, & Frank Wakefield. This was the most educational time of my musical career. Without a doubt Bill Keith was a mentor & absolute influence on my banjo playing. So that lasted for a couple of years and we went our seperate ways.1 of the members of Wheeler Creek, Chuck Costantino, and I went on to form Hardwood a 1/2 american & 1/2 canadian group. We played for 2 years earning Canada's Best New Band Award at Their National Awards Show. I then was asked to go on tour with Sugar Hill Recording Artists Doug & Willa Porter. Once again about a 2 year stint and I was back to looking for someone to play with. It didn't take long though & soon I was playing mandolin with an all Canadian band called The Catalogue Parlor Band out of the Kingston area. We played all over Canada and just like before right after getting the Best New Band award at the national awards show the band split up. This 2 year thing was starting to become a drag. So I decided to give bluegrass a rest. I moved to the Lake George area of NY where I found myself playing up to 4 nights a week. The difference was I didn't have to travel all over, the money was better and I was playing lead guitar in a rock band called Blues Lagoon. I lived there for 6 years. During that time my bluegrass lust was fulfilled by doing jobs with mandolin legend Chan Goodnow, The Fred Lantz Quartet, & Stan Tyminski(Danny's Brother) whom I toured Holland, Belgium, & Germany with(You can see pics from that tour in my pics). During this time some friends of mine from Nashville convinced me that it was where I needed to be. So I moved and to my great disappointment hardly ever played and when I did barely got paid. I stayed for about a year and decided to move closer to some family who lived in Athens, GA. After taking a year off from music entirely I started playing mandolin & dobro with Hard Labor Bluegrass a band based out of the Atlanta area. But I missed my home & family up north and soon made the move back to upstate NY. Soon after arriving back in the north country I started playing with Master Shield Recording artists & internationally acclaimed Abrams Brothers from Kingston, Ontario. (Check Out A Video Here... http://www.theabramsbrothers.ca/video.cfm?vid=mini_clip.wmv) In my off weeks with them I was also sitting in on dobro with the Atkinson Family from Harrisville. I'm now playing mandolin, guitar, banjo & dobro with a jazz ensemble out of the Watertown, NY area called The Jim Burr Quartet. I am also putting together a bluegrass/celtic/swing/roots music band called The Up North String Band. While continuing to hold down the best job I've ever had... Master Control Operator at WWNY-CBS /WNYF-Fox TV in Watertown!