I grew up as the son of a Baptist preacher, the second of seven children and the oldest boy.
I was born in Akron,
Ohio, but I spent 11 of my first 14 years living in southern Ohio. It was in my dad’s church in Portsmouth, Ohio that my love of hymns
was fostered and enriched. I came to faith in Christ as a young boy, following
the death of my grandfather. The greatest thing that my parents ever did for
me was impress upon me at an early age that I was important to the Lord and he had a will for my life.
I’ve always loved to listen to music, and I took a little piano instruction while in southern Ohio. I was not a serious student, however,
preferring to just listen rather than perform. I played once or twice in church
and that was it. I loved popular radio in the 80s, and I still have a soft spot
for much of the music I heard from that era. At that time, I had no particular
interest in the guitar.
That all changed, however, when I was 16. My good friend (now my brother-in-law)
and I were out cruising around and listening to music one night and he played a cassette tape that literally changed my life. It was a best-of package by the British rock band, Dire Straits. The guitarist was Mark Knopfler, and there was something about his playing that got into me and has never
let go. I had never heard a guitar sound like that. It was so lyrical and expressive. Knopfler’s playing
was emotional and beautiful and utterly unlike anything else in my experience. Suffice
it to say, I was hooked. I began to buy up Dire Straits’ back catalog as
fast as my meager financial resources would allow. I can remember going to the
library and looking up every single article about Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits in the entire archives. During this time of study, I began encountering the names of other great players, and I started running
down their stories as well. Some of these were people I had heard of casually,
like Eric Clapton or Chet Atkins. Some, like Al DiMeola or Les Paul, were all-new
to me.
Over the next couple of years, I bought all sorts of guitar-oriented music and tried to immerse myself in it. I loved reading about great players and hunting down their albums. There was only one problem- I still couldn’t play a note. I
was intimidated by the instrument and, frankly, was afraid to start. I felt that
I would never attain the proficiency of my heroes and therefore didn’t
want to even begin. I was that rarest of creatures: a teenager with low self-confidence!
Finally, I was listening to Knopfler one day and something inside of me just woke up and I decided that I was going
to get a guitar and learn to play it if it took the rest of my life. I was right
about that part. My dad gave me half the money, and I purchased a $70 acoustic
guitar from a pawn shop in Akron. What a piece of junk! It didn’t matter to me, because
I was on my way. I took my first guitar lesson in September of 1992, two months
short of my 19th birthday, and I have never looked back.
Early on, I wanted to be a cross between Knopfler, Clapton, Al DiMeola, Eric Johnson, and Steve Vai. All of my biggest heroes were electric guitar players and that’s what I wanted. I had a great respect for Chet Atkins, and was fortunate enough to see him in person twice, but it took
a while for the fingerstyle world to get a hold of me.
I started down the acoustic fingerstyle path when I began to arrange hymns to perform in my church. I liked the idea of being able to play all of the parts by myself and have “my own little orchestra,”
as Chet would say. After a while, I had a little repertoire of hymns that I could
play alone and I started to look at other styles of music to play. That’s
when the music of Phil Keaggy hit me. Hard.
I had seen Keaggy a handful of times and I was a big fan, but it took a few years of playing before I began
to really get a handle on what he was doing. Once I saw the possibilities of
the solo acoustic world, I jumped out of the electric guitar world and into my future.
I was learning Keaggy’s style and techniques and even got up enough courage to start composing my own songs. I discovered the world of alternate guitar tunings through Keaggy’s influence. Phil Keaggy was the first of the two biggest acoustic guitar influences of my life.
The other was Billy McLaughlin, a virtuoso guitarist from Minneapolis. I stumbled upon Billy quite by accident (my brother and I went to see Adrian Legg
and Billy was the opening act) but I believe that the Lord put him in my path at just the right time. Billy showed me the two-handed tapping techniques that I have grown to love so much, as well as a sense
of style and space in my playing that I had previously lacked. Not only that, but Billy’s personal encouragement gave
my confidence a real shot in the arm that I needed. I had been performing periodically
at open mike nights for ten or fifteen minutes at a time, but I began to book two-hour concerts in coffee shops around town. That’s a long time to play all by yourself in front of strangers with no one
else to hide behind! My first solo acoustic concert was held at an Arabica Coffee
House in Stow, Ohio in March
of 2000.
Since then, I have been blessed with a steadily increasing performing life. I
have released three CDs and I love to play the guitar more than ever. I’ve
spent a couple of seasons as a lobby musician for Playhouse Square
Center in Cleveland,
the second-largest performing arts center in the country. I have an active performing
schedule on the coffee shop circuit, as well as playing private functions and my most fulfilling pursuit, performing sacred
music concerts (see “Sacred Concerts” page).
My wife, Nora, and I married in 1998, and in 2004 we were blessed with a daughter, Elianna. I could never have enjoyed the level of satisfaction and fulfillment that music provides to me without
the support of my wife, who has continually encouraged me on to greater heights. We
are looking forward to the future and whatever the Lord has in store for us in His service.
