Inspired by all the great music of the time, I began playing guitar in 1965, at age 11 and, by 1967, I was a lead singer in a Top 40 cover band. My older (and wiser) brother wanted me to better understand where the music I was playing came from, so he took me, in 1968, to The Midwest Delta Blues Festival. There on the stage, playing one after another, was Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Willie Dixon, Otis Spann, J. B. Hutto, nearly all of the era's greatest blues talents, were there playing from noon until midnight. By the end of the night I found myself up at the front of the stage, completely blissed out, in a state of musical ecstasy. This was my first realization of the transformative power of music. Soon after this I quit the band and started going to see any blues music I could find. At the same time, I began honing my guitar skills by sitting in on a number of local blues and rock jam sessions. This is where growing up in the Chicago area proved to be helpful.
In 1972, I experienced a profound spiritual vision that helped me see the connection between music and raising consciousness. This put me on the path to exploring how different kinds of music can create different feeling states. I will say that I have found some answers over the years by studying the musical teachings of the Sufis as well as the rest of the great esoteric musical traditions. Yet there also seems to be an infinite aspect to all of this that may just be beyond words or comprehension. I continued to play music, (mostly at open jams and around campfires) throughout the early 70s, while I was hitchhiking around the country, spending much of my time hiking and camping in the forests of the west. I spent the later 70s living at many different "off the grid" alternative communities. In 1979, I found myself working with a designer/builder constructing energy efficient solar homes. The hardest part of this job was an insistence that we could only play Top 40 radio music throughout the day. Knowing what I did about music's transformative power and having lived off the grid with mostly positive music around me for many years, I was astounded at how much of the music I was hearing affected me negatively and felt energetically disempowering. Having this experience inspired me to begin creating uplifting and empowering music and ever since then these songs have continued to come through.
In 1980, I was living in the foothills of the Oregon Cascades with a group of people creating the remote Breitenbush community. We were surrounded by rare old growth National Forest, and we noticed as the 80s' went on, that the Forest Service had started cutting those magnificent trees around us at an alarming rate. One of the communities many responses to help save the trees was to put out a call, with a lot of assistance from musician Jim Scott, to many of the like minded musicians in the area. We then invited them to spend a week at Breitenbush, jamming and writing catchy, original, eco themed music. That weekend we played a concert which got recorded and was then sold to benefit the forest as "Concert To Save The Forest." Some of us got together and created The Old Growth Boogie Band which began paying this music around the area to raise awareness about the disappearing old growth forest. Throughout the 80s and 90s I continued writing songs with positive, often eco-friendly messages while playing in a number of original music bands. Earthbeat, Tanglefoot, Jawbone and Healin' were amongst the longest lasting of my many musical collaborations. Though recently, I’m finding the music that's been coming through has me playing mostly solo gigs. My life long interest in alternative healing and living a natural lifestyle (I became a vegetarian by age 16), came together in 2003 when I began studying energy medicine. Since then I have learned and been certified in numerous energy healing arts including, Dynamic Energetic Healing, Reiki, the healing traditions of the native Q'ero people of South America, as well as being trained in Sound Healing by Tom Kenyon. I feel this music coming through me is just a reflection of my immense gratitude and love of life which flows into the music and emerges through the songs.
In Joy!!