TalentTrove Home

I can't remember what is like to not eat, live, and breathe music. I started singing at the age of 3. My first musical instrument was piano (short lived) at 8. When school was done, I had 12 years on clarinet, 8 years on French horn, and 4 years each on percussion and sax. There was also 4 years of drum and bugle corp, as well as summer school music workshops. After public school, I moved onto bass first and after being exposed to my friend, Dave Meniketti (Y &T), the love affair with guitar started. I have spent 38 years on guitar and as the great guitarist, Rex Carroll of Whitecross puts it, you can have 3 lifetimes on guitar and never learn it all. I still carry my learner's permit as my students will show me things...mainly because I like to inspire their own musical ideas. We both benefit that way.

GOD, JESUS Christ, Holy Spirit and getting to know them more. Music of course, Reading, Cooking (my wife says I make a killer Salmon Chowder and a killer stuffed meatloaf), other cultures and people/family groups, and of course learning. One person told me this years ago..."green things grow".

To be Johnny Appleseed, planting the good seed in good ground directing people to salvation through Christ (and no, I don't walk on water...I am no better than anyone else, I know my "dark side" and have to control it). To be the best I can be at all that I attempt, to encourage others to reach for the greatness within themselves. As for guitar playing, I draw on a Bible experience. When King David danced before the Ark of the Covenant as it was being returned to Jerusalem, he was so outrageous, he danced into his underwear. One of his wives, former King Saul's daughter, Michal, made a snide comment about how undignified it was for the King to dance in his underwear in front of the slave girls...and in the immortal words of King David, I stand in agreement and declare this about my guitar playing as well: "I'll be even more outrageous the next time".