An Early Start
My great grandfather was an accomplished pianist. So was my mother. She got me started with piano lessons at the age of four, guitar at eight...and inspired by her, I have had a true love for music of all kinds throughout my life. First there were recitals, then gigs at the local YMCA with a rock band during high school, then my thumb and the highway at seventeen. I play music because I love music, and sharing it makes me love it even more. I have performed to over a million people in the past thirty years. What a ride it's been.

Before the Internet, cassette tapes and CDs, being a traveling musician wasn't much more glamorous than being a truck driver. You drove, you stopped, you played, you drove some more. You'd call ahead a few weeks in advance (now it's years), talk to some club owner about dates, time and pay, and you just showed up. You didn't make a lot of money, but it was fertile ground for new songs, and the songs kept you driving. I come from that life.

I played a little cross-country circuit for years ... Michigan, Colorado and Texas - the midwest. I hitch-hiked, rode the trains and planes and used up a dozen cars and vans over the years. I played in bars, restaurants, night-clubs, strip-joints, coffeehouses, festivals, carnivals, county fairs and health food stores. I played anywhere to anyone who'd have me.

I also did carpentry work and enjoyed that almost as much as the music life. I've built a lot of cool stuff with a lot of great guys and still can't seem to stop putzing around the tool shed at home. I've been building my house in Michigan for the past two years - it keeps me sane. I've had a couple of construction businesses over the years but never did stick to the rules with that...I had a cabinet business in the late 1980's that bombed big-time in '90 and put me into bankruptcy. At the suggestion of good friends Jon Ims and Rick West, and with the help of friend Peter Phinny, I turned my attention back to music and headed to Nashville in 1991.

My dad died from alcholism that same year, a few months after I stopped drinking.

I won the Kerrville New Folk Award in 1994; my second attempt.

Nashville
Nashville has been a blesing and a curse. So it is with the business of entertainment. It's the hungry lion that doesn't chew, just devours. It's a place where you produce a product and try to sell it, and where there are five thousand other talented people trying to do the same. Ironically, and unlike any other business, the "product" happens to be you, your take on the world around you, and your ability to translate it to others. I've had my share of confusion with that; it's a lot easier being satisfied with a table-to-table gig in some little restaurant where most of the people listening like you to begin with. But living in and among so many talented artists is truly awe-inspiring, and I know that many of the friends I have made there will be friends for life. The hard part isn't getting in, though, it's getting out. The artistic community is a fabric - we're all a life-time part of the weave.

Songs.com
Paul Schatzkin, Tom Kimmel and I started Songs.com in 1995 and over the course of the next four years gathered together more than 500 independent songwriters and performers to make one of best Indie music sites on the Web. It was a tremendous amount of work but a huge amount of fun.

One of the many highlights of that experience was working with my friend Janis Ian's online auction. We sold her career memorabilia in an online auction and raised almost $70,000 which she then donated to her mother's alma mater, Goddard College. (You can read about it at her website).

Songs.com was one of the first online music ventures and offered artist home pages, CD sales, downloadable music and even some innovative recording contracts. We sold the business to Gaylord Entertainment in Nashville in 1999 and not really knowing how to make it bigger and better, they in turn put it to sleep the next year. The price was right, but I regret that we weren't able to meet the great goals we originally set for it. The experience with Paul and Tom will always be a treasure to me.

Today
Today I consider myself semi-retired but restless - not quite finished with the work. But, I've worked at this for thirty years and I've come to appreciate the little things more than the big ones. I'm building a house on a lake, I'm spending time with my family and loved ones and I'm still growing. I still love working in Nashville and I still wake up wondering what to write today and try to write it. I love both worlds; the one the music comes from, and the one I take it to. There's still a lifetime ahead - I guess I'll just keep living it.

thanks for reading. peace.