Biography

Music can be a healing affect in the heart, body and mind.

I began playing guitar on my 16th birthday, when my mother gave me one for a present. I had promised to learn how to play because I signed up for a guitar class at high school. I really had no intention of learning it though. I took the class only because I figured I’d be able to goof off; I wasn’t much into school.

I was a loner…we moved around a lot. The guitar became my best companion. It probably kept me out of trouble too. I would stay up until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. playing it. From the start I made up my own compositions. The only time I learned songs by other artists was in that class I took in high school – I really enjoyed writing my own.

Being that I was a teenager, I soon migrated to the electric guitar. I had to mimic the hard rock music I was into. I actually became a very good rhythm guitarist and passed every audition. So in the first few years of playing I was in a number of original rock bands. Yet there remained a love for acoustic guitar music that was inadvertently introduced to me by one of my sisters listening to her Crosby, Stills & Nash and Neil Young records…before I even learned how to play.

Those band days lasted only about five years. I never became known on the music circuit though. The bands I joined rarely went beyond their local playing area. And I was still a loner; I didn’t hang out with musicians up in L.A. or Hollywood. I never met or knew anyone famous. I did however play in a band with Robert Sweet – best known for being the drummer of Stryper. Then just as fame was nearing the band I was in broke up. I was crushed. A two year hiatus began.

I resurfaced as the rhythm guitarist in a Praise & Worship band at the church I was attending. I had become a Christ follower at age 17 but only got serious about it in my mid 20′s. I spent three years in this group. It is here I learned music can be a healing affect in the heart, body and mind. I would not trade this experience for anything.

Around 1989 I again dropped off the musical landscape. In 15 years of being a musician/composer I had failed to become “someone”. I was disappointed. I sold all my gear, keeping only one acoustic guitar. Another two year hiatus began.

The early 90′s found me managing a truly great rock band, Sunday Silents. The drummer, a friend from church, was in the band and invited me to a gig. I told them they should get a manager…they chose me! Later I spent five years as lead guitarist in my most favorite band to have been in, Purple Mountain Matinee. The decade ended with me leaving PMM and once again disappearing from the musical landscape.

In 2004 I began exploring alternate tunings on the guitar after having listened to – over and over again – the Guitar Passion album by Dallas Gordon. This one album inspired a return to playing and composing, and the thought of recording my own music. I found a more proper place and expression in being an instrumentalist. In 2006 I recorded my first album, ‘Clearly‘, under my own name, thirty-two years after first learning how to play the guitar. At 48 years of age I determined, finally, music would have a more prominent place in my life.

Six years later I’m still composing and recording on a yearly basis (see Discography), but I’m still just a normal guy that happens to play guitar and compose instrumental music…which I hope will enable you to escape the noise and enjoy some quiet moments.

—–
2011 New Mexico Music Award – Producer, Native American Traditional (for Rushingwind & Mucklow)
2011 Native American Music Award – Nomination – Best Producer (for Rushingwind & Mucklow)
2011 Native American Music Award – Nomination – Best New Age Album (for Rushingwind & Mucklow)