I was brought up in a household where we listened to a lot of different types of music. There was always some country, western, jazz, classical, rock and roll, and other genres but Johnny Cash, Hank Snow and Waylon Jennings were kings. The record collection was vast and even included comedy by way of Shelly Berman and Bob Newhart in the early days. We were always listening to something.

In fact, my mom was a huge fan of Waylon and we would go to where he was playing frequently, mostly JD’s between Tempe and Scottsdale. JD’s had rock n’ roll upstairs and country n’ western downstairs so there was plenty to choose from at that venerated venue. I would also tag along with the folks to hear country stars like Hank Thompson at Mr. Lucky’s.

When rock and roll came around I contributed to the record collection with The Beatles, Stones and whatever I could afford to buy.

My experience with playing music began with a few lessons on a six-string I got from Sears. It was a Silvertone guitar in its case. I graduated to a Chet Atkins Tennessean and a 6 X 10 Silvertone amplifier. The guitar came as a promise from my folks that if I played in the band I was managing, they would buy me a “real” guitar. The folks loved Chet Atkins so it was an easy choice to reflect George Harrison’s choice of a hollow-body electric, a new Gretch Chet Atkins Tennessean from Kowall’s Music in downtown Mesa.

I managed a couple of bands and played in several others in high school. With many friends who loved and played music, it was easy to start another band on the spot for a gig or battle of the bands. We all caught the fever when The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.

After college in my career as a high school, college and university teacher, I learned to how to integrate technology into everything I was doing. This transferred to my music interests in a big way since I wanted to do more than play, I wanted to manipulate and produce sound. I was always fascinated with words, so it made sense to begin to compose and take song ideas from my head to paper and computer. I learned Pro Tools and Logic Pro X and took a few digital audio recording classes to round out my knowledge.

All of this brings me to this web site where I can collect and present my tunes.