The Early Years
In One of my earliest memories I’m 3 years old and with my dad at his job as a recording engineer at Audio Video Recording Studio’s in New York City. Shortly after that he began as recording engineer with Fred Waring’s recording studio at Shawnee on the Delaware. I got my first Guitar at 6, first performance at 8 (on KCRC radio singing a jingle for “Acme Gold Leaf Potato Chips and Cracklins.” Then first live performance with my guitar at 10 playing for a PTA fundraiser for North Enid (Oklahoma) Elementary. I formed folk group in 1962 at Tahlequah (Oklahoma) Junior High School where our main gig was playing every other Friday for Mrs Purdy’s choir class talent show. It was in the folk scene that I reconnected with my family’s Celtic roots (three great grandmothers from Ireland and a grandmother from the borderlands between Scotland and England.
The Middle Years
Then in 1987 my friend Bill Kingsbury convinced me that I could write my own songs and thus began the next part of the journey from musician to singer/songwriter. During that time, along with Bill, I was joined by Tom Bomgartner on harmonica and then by Alan Frost as a co-writer and lead guitarist and finally Holli Bara who was also a co-writer. The songs from that time formed the foundation of the catalogue of songs that are still in my set lists on a regular basis.
Then I met Cynthia Whiddon Green and we grabbed on to our shared Celtic heritage and became Gypsyfire. And with 25 years of history that part of life has its own section on this website.
The Present
Since 1987 I have a bit over 200 songs I thought enough of to copyright. These days the road only rarely leads to a paying gig at a house concert or a coffee house/listening room. Generally we’re spending time in the studio or somewhere within a few hours drive of home playing in support of a good cause. There are occasional opportunities to play with old friends when we are visiting old haunts. The music defies being placed in a genre so I call it “fusion”. The chords are often jazz sounding with lots of 6ths and 9ths and 11ths. The sound may be folk/blues/jazz but the words and subjects are very much contemporary or even classic folk. To date there is a series of CD called the Troubadour Volume 1 through 6 that form the recorded archive of those that have remained in the set list for all these years. Add to that a couple of other solo efforts both audio and a few video projects and you have
