About Me
My career has been up and down, starting with learning to play piano on my mother's old upright...Between Fats Domino songs and writing terrible pubescent, love ballads, I somehow tried to learn to play french horn in the 6th grade band (I think it was the only instrument no one else would play) I say tried, because I still don't read music...My first real band (we all shared a Sears Silvertone amp) played for parties and anywhere they'd have us...I co-wrote my senior song called All As One...(we were a new consolidation school) set to the music of the Beatles' Let It Be. And I played piano during the singing of it on stage at graduation...Then it was on to college where I skipped most of my classes cause I was always playing somewhere (honing my ROCKSTAR chops), drinking and getting high. All this time, I continued to write songs cause I thought that was the cool thing to do and I kinda had a niche for it...During the 70's I became a radio DJ for almost every station in Southwest Louisiana (including a week for KJEF in Jennings where I met Phil Phillips, whose song, "Sea Of Love" is a classic...he was emptying the garbage cans and we introduced ourselves and when he told me who he was, I almost shit...He said bad management and other things kept him from becoming a big star & was now content with life, spending time with his grandkids...I toured in a showband from North Carolina and one night while performing in Dothan, AL had the opportunity to jam with Stevie Gaines, Artimus Pyle and Leon Wilkeson after a Skynrd show...(I'll never forget how polite Gaines was and yet, he died tragically within a few months) Went to work at a recording studio in Crowley, LA and met a young man who played diatonic accordion and sang in French and just rocked the fuck out of songs that had everybody just goin' nuts. Eventually played with this Wayne Toups character and as a member of ZYDECAJUN performed all over the world (24 countries) Wrote 10 songs on 2 MERCURY RECORD releases between 1989-91. I met this upcoming country singer, Garth Brooks backstage at a George Strait show & spent close to an hour just shootin' the shit in his dressing room and never once tried to pitch this soon-to-be-bigger-than-anybody, a single solitary song...SOMEBODY SLAP ME...Anyway, I redeemed myself by having another country star (Sammy Kershaw) record several of my songs. We go back some (played this little ass lounge gig back in 87 and before that, rode around TEXAS playin' bars together in an old, beat-up van payin our fair share of dues...He's a true friend and is included on my list of ECLECTIC PALS...He performed one of our songs "Better Call A Preacher" (LISTEN ABOVE) on the David Letterman Show in 1994... I got turned on to Protools around 1999 and have been using this incredible recording system ever since...Ah digital recording....its a beautiful thing...Check out HIDDEN TREASURE (above) written with Steven D Cohen... Kenny Chesney...where ya't???I moved to Nashville this summer and continue to write and produce things that interest me (I've done 4 Jamie Bergeron CDs ,Dustin Ray, Max LaBry, WADE richard, and everything from Trueman Posse, Willie Tee, Roddie Romero and many others)...I 'm performing live with Hunter Hayes, who is an incredible 17 year old singer-songwriter... Feels like I'm on this journey down a never ending road to who knows where; but man ain't it just fun trying to get there....
