Since my father was a preacher (both a paster and an evangelist at different times in his life), gospel was the first music I was intoduced to, but by no means the only one. Both my parents were vocalists and musicians--my mother played piano and organ and in her youth had flirted with the idea of having a career as a jazz singer, while my father played guitar. Later in his life he told me that for many years he had played the trumpet, Harry James being his hero, but before I was born someone had accidently stepped on and crushed his horn, and he had never replaced it. But my parents also had an extensive record collection that reflected their diverse tastes, so I was exposed to many different styles and forms of music from an early age.

My half brother, sixteen years my senior, whom I remember first meeting when I was six, also played guitar. He had a beautifull blond Gibson 175, circ. 1956, which I lusted after for many years. And like most little brothers, I idolized him; so I suppose it was natural that I was drawn to the instrument that he and my father played.

My mother bought my first guitar for me when I was eleven years old. It was a classical and the instruction book that came with it had pictures of the author that looked like they were taken in the ninteen twenties: he wore a formal tux with a high, stiff collar and his hair was slicked straight back. I tried working from the book for a while, but soon I did what most guitarist of my age did, had my father and brother show me chords that they knew, and began to accompany myself singing with simple strumming patterns. By the time I was thirteen I had aquired a Lyle semi-solid body electric, and began working with a record and book of my brother's of Chet Atkins' style of country western playing; his expansion of Merle Travis's alternating bass "fingerpicking"as it was called, and had some success with that.

By this time I was traveling with my brother who, like my father, had become an evangelist. Several years earlier, after I had finished sixth grade, my mother had pulled me out of public school, and I finished the rest of my education through correspondense school while on the road. First with my brother, then with my father when he and my mother returned to evangelism, I spent the rest of my adolescence criss-crossing the country. It was services every night as we held revival meetings in small churches from California to Florida, from West Virginia to Washington state. I would sing and play the guitar, and in the daytime, when not doing my schoolwork, I would lock my self in our station wagon and wear out the cassette recording I had of James Taylor's "Sweet Baby James", trying to learn every lyric and guitar lick of each song on the album, Taylor having become my new guitar hero when I was sixteen.

I married quite young and for a while worked at following in my father's footsteps. My wife, who is also quite musical, sang with me and I took several positions in churches as music minister, but the needs of my young family required more than those positions could fullfill and I soon found myself welding for a living. While my wife and I raised our two sons to adulthood, I left performing and music became a hobby for me. For a few years I even quit playing altogether, but in my thirties I discovered jazz which revitalized my interest in music and my instrument. I studied with some of the best players in the Northwest, and finally began performing again. In the end I suppose, I must disagree with Wolfe: you can go home.

My father - a guitarist - my mother, and that's me as an infant on my mother's lap.

My wife, Nan, and me when we were in our twenties.

Nan, me, and our sons, Nigel and Ian mid 80's.

Here we are again in the late 90's