This is my story as I see it. I was born in upstate South Carolina, into blue-collar mystery & all the good ol’ southern comforts. I can’t remember life without music. I can recall vividly the long dusky drives home from my grandparents’ house on Sunday evenings, listening to the sounds of The Temptations, Martha & the Vandellas, Lil’ Stevie Wonder, & The Drifters on the local oldies station & falling asleep, watching the moon just outside the window. The drives to church on Sunday mornings were filled with rich harmonies of The Cathedrals, The Gaithers, The Florida Boys, & the occasional Teddy Huffman & The Gems tune. If most of the names aren’t familiar, wirte them down, go to iTunes & get some real music. Around the house there was always some Buddy Holly, Elvis, or Alabama playing. To hear “Islands In The Stream” by Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers, or “Stranger In My House” by Ronnie Milsap brings back floods of memories. To add in with all of this, most everybody in my immediate & extended family plays or sings. So going to the all-day singings at the local churches was a common thing. That is where my appreciation of good music comes from. I’ve always been surrounded by it.

 

   I started making music, or noise, when i was 5 or 6 years old. I remember playing a tambourine on the front pew of our little country Pentecostal church, & people being surprised that I could keep the beat. I picked up some drumsticks & sat behind something that once was a drum set in its former life, & just did what came natural. Keeping the beat. It wasn’t until middle school that & signed up for band, got a trumpet (we couldn’t play drums in middle school, who knows why?, so I followed in my brothers footsteps), & started on a road of learning music that I’m still on today. I enjoyed learning the structure of music, & the language that could be spoken to other people. When it gets inside you, it starts to change the very nature of your soul. Music must be God’s language. To play it, feel it, connect to the world around you through it, is something divine in nature.  I loved seeing how notes fit together in harmony, & how melodies & bass movements were so complimentary, but I was always with the rhythm & the beat of what was happening. I started studying percussion when I got into high school, & found myself in balance. The melody & the rhythm all came together to shape the way I play & sing now. I have a friend who says I still play drums, just with my guitar & voice now. I guess it’s true.

 

  I got a guitar for Christmas when i was 16. It was a Texarkana that cost about $100 I think. Up until that point I had never wanted to play guitar, it really never crossed my mind. But when I strummed my first G chord, something in me came alive. My brother & I would sit in our room & play every Eagles song we could learn. The teaching tool that we used was not a book, but Hootie & the Blowfishs’ Cracked Rear View album. We tried to learn every song; me, figuring out the chords, & him, finding the guitar solos. People often ask me when i started to write songs, & how. It came so naturally for me. That not spoken in arrogance, but in simplicity. I had been writing poetry since I was 12, & idea of putting those to music seemed automatic. I wrote my first song (Daddy’s Arms) about three months after I started playing & its just kept going. I worry that one day the well will be dry when I lower my bucket. I hope not. But if so, the music still lives on.

 

 To try to name all the bands that influenced me in those early days of playing would be an impossible feat. I was blessed to pick up the acoustic guitar when the music scene was having a rebirth into its folk roots. Hootie & the Blowfish, Toad The Wet Sprocket, Big Head Todd & The Monsters, & the Cowboy Junkies were all in the scene. There was also a great movement back to the singer/songwriter stuff that the generation before me listened to. Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, The Eagles, Simon & Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, & the immortal Bob Dylan were resurfacing in a current stream of musical consciousness. I am grateful to have been strumming my handful of chords while Crosby & Nash’s “Southbound Train” rang in all its vinyl glory from my turntable. I fell deeply in love with jazz & blues in my later high school years. At any time you could find Miles Davis’ “The Man With the Horn” album or “Citi Movement” by Wynton Marsalis in my stereo. There was something so free & out of control about listening to them play. I still strive to find that in my music today.

 

So, where have I been? A lot of places, nowhere. I enjoyed my time playing with Cedars of Lebanon, & know that I will never again share the stage with more talented individuals. My creativity, vision, & expectation have never grown so much. The time with Colonel Travis, albeit short, was a refreshing baptism into the reasons why I do what I do. Because damn the logic, I just love it. I learned how to let go & be me.

 

So this finds me here, in upstate S.C., where it all started. If I tried to tell my whole story, I’d get lost & you’d most likely get bored. But call me up for a cup of coffee one day & we’ll continue. 10 years, a handful of albums, a few guitars, & much blood, sweat & tears later, I find myself, in a big scope, enjoying where I am, where I’ve been & where I’m headed. This sojourn, surrounded by fellow travelers with mixed destinations, is alright with me…