I made my first guitar out of an old wooden cigar box attached to a stick with fishin' line. It was too noisy to ge a great air guitar but what the hell - I wanted to Jam with Buddy Holly - I was 9 years old and livin' in Lubbock, TX.
(I was an airforce brat with an east Tn hillbilly dad and an Arizona, cowgirl mom so we moved around alot) when I turned 13 we were livin' in Klamath Falls, Oregon and I had the fever - dad got me an old Kay Harmony guitar with strings 1/2 inch off the fret board and I ignored the blood blisters and played anyway - I thought all guitars were like that. A buddy showed me open d tuning and I learned some folk stuff and dad showed me standard tuning and taught me some old Hank songs. I fell in love with Duane Eddy's guitar sound and started dreamin' about an electric. By the time I'd turned 16, dad had retired from the airforce and we moved back home to Maryville, TN in the foothillls of the Smokey Mts. He got me my first electric (a Cortez) and a little amp and I put a band together in high school that stayed together for three years, released a regional hit, opened for groups like the Beach Boys, played lots of honky tonks and had a ball with 12 bar blues tunes and classic rock and motown. I joined the Marines and went to VietNam and stopped in California on my way home in the late 60's. Discovered the San Francisco bands but ironically my favorites, Mother Earth and Area Code 615 were from back home so I ended up in Nashville in 1969. Wrote and recorded a vinyl LP "Rusty Rails and Cold Steel Blues" on an indie label Lady Jane Records - long out of print and out of business. I got some crossover airplay on a few songs from that lp which originally were released on a 45 on SoundTrack records. I toured around the west for awhile before eventually moving back to the mountains of east Tn where I went back to acoustic mountain music and delta blues. Spent a few years playing the coast from N. Carolina to the Florida Keys and bought a sailboat that I lived on for a few more years - eventually getting back to Texas on Galveston Bay and playin around Houston with some blues bands. Sold the boat and spent a few years in the Rocky Mts, hiking, writing and playin' clubs and jammin' with some awesome players. Came back to Nashville about 4 years ago, still writing, playin' writer's showcases and living in my recording studio on music row. I'm workin' on a couple of cds right now that will be released on Deep River Records, a small indie label. I'm just another old guitar picker, folk singer with some stories to tell and fortunate to be surrounded with friends that are really talented and blessed to live in an area that's world renown for the musical magic that occurs here. Just growin' old but not up and tryin' to write a song that Mickey Newberry would approve of - a dear friend recently shared one of his quotes with me "If you're gonna fuck 'em, fuck 'em in the heart" and another one of his that I try to follow "Write what you are or you'll become what you write" Write a song that will smash the last piece of my broken heart and I'll say you're a songwriter. Since this is labeled a band bio, I'd have to say all the other members of the band are the ghosts of the great writer's of the past that still live in my heart and hopefully I get out of the way occassionally and allow them to play on through me.
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