I always loved music. At age 5 I was a big fan of the Beatles. Used to sit in front of the radio waiting of the DJ on WIXY to play Hard Days Night just one more time. Around age 9 my folks took me to see 2001: A Space Odessy and I became a convert to classical music, especially Beethoven. The conversion to folk came gradually, influenced by 5 albums that my parents owned.

#1 Harry Belafonte #2&3 PP&M Moving and Album 1700 #4 Simon & Garfunkel Parsley Sage etc.... #5 Pete Seeger at Carnegie Hall.

As a junior in High School I got interested in Guitar after watching a guy I'd known since kindergarten play and sing songs he wrote himself, I begged for one of my own. Got one for my birthday (A Guild M20 I still own). Soon after that I picked up the harmonica, and bought some blues albums. My favorite was Sonny Terry & Brownie Mcghee, Midnight Special. Acoustic Blues became my secret passion that I was unable to share with my High School companions that were all into Boston, Genesis and Foreigner. Nursed this passion alone till college, where one day, during a break in a training seminar I was attending at the student center, a friend invited me to check out the folk festival workshops upstairs for a while . Fifteen minutes later I knew I had found my niche.