Bio:

Born 9/29/34, Floyd (Hunt County) Texas, rural community.Mom and dad loved popular and sacred music. Mom played piano, reading only.Sometimes she subbed for the Baptist Church pianist in our town.My first exposure to music was in church; then on radio: specifically the Fred Waring Show c. 1940. Later I found out that Les Paul was the guitarist in Waring's orch.

Mom started me taking piano lessons from a neighbor when I was 4 or 5;bartering a half dozen eggs for the weekly lesson.

We moved around a bit in my early years but finally settled in Denton, Texas when I was about nine and in third grade. We lived near the UNT Campus and my father worked for the university in maintenance. I loved the campus, especially the music that abounded. Live performances were often and regular and usually free. The Saturday Night Stage Show featured 'Fesson Floyd Grahame's "Aces of Collegeland" and various acts: usually local amateurs, sometimes pros. The "Aces" played mostly stocks of familiar, popular swing tunes -- later they ran a movie, usually one that was a few years old. My brother and I attended the Stage Show often. Money was tight, but we could usually come up with the quarter for a ticket.

During my early years, when we got some slack, Mom would hook me up with a piano teacher. I was never really knocked out by the instrument. I looked on it as sort of a musical typewriter. It did give me a basic understanding of: how notes were related, intervals, harmony, chords, and chord progressions. But, all these things I learned on my own. The teachers were much more interested in my memorizing a recital piece; most of which were boring classical antiques. They (the teachers) were completely out of touch, not only with the music that I loved, but, they had little understanding or interest in harmony and theory, or least of all jazz.

Denton Jr. High was where it all started to happen musically....

Denton Jr. High was where most of my music education took place. Don't leap to any conclusions. I was not in Marching Band or A Capella Choir. There was a Social Studies teacher, Mr. Habern, who played a little guitar and organized some of the students into a country band. The guitar was difficult for me. My hands were not ready. I played ukelele. I put a contact mic on the uke and got an amp and started learning (memorizing) tunes. This was the only country band in Denton that played tunes like Perdido and Once In A While. Our gigs were at Kiwanis Club, Lions Club, Optomist, etc. During this period I started buying a few records. Pop stuff like: Nat Cole, Doris Day, Bing Crosby. Or big bands like Ray Anthony, Harry James, and I especially like Billy May. The Four Freshmen knocked me out.

My High School friend, Jack Petersen, won a course of guitar lessons in a radio contest. The teacher was an older student at UNT (ex-GI) who was a good player and had a lot of experience, Bob Haymes. When Jack had a lesson I would beat it over to his house and pick his brain. It was great. Jack and I are still best friends and we still both play guitar and make our livings in the music biz. Those were great and productive years. Bob Haymes let us listen to a lot of jazz recordings -- we heard players like Karl Kress, Tal Farlow, Chuck Wayne, Herb Ellis, Barney Kessel, Barry Galbraith, Remo Palmieri.Oscar Moore, and Charlie Christian. During those high school years we spent a lot of time listening to the UNT Lab Bands, and many small groups that appeared on campus.

Through all this musical blossoming, I never was interested in "studying" an instrument. My main thrust was to learn tunes and really more basically, to learn new and different chord progressions. I collected them. I envied the way that Cole Porter could come up with innovative ways to string chords together.

Jack was different. He loved chord progressions but he also wanted training. He learned piano; and took up playing vibes. Eventually he became a jazz band arranger and studio musician. Neither of us ever got a degree. I was much more interested in making music than learning about it. The intensity of live performing still does it for me. And, I think it probably is much he same for Jack. He still plays a lot of gigs, as do I.

Later, around 1990, I grew tired of the rigors of being a bandleader, booking agent, and p.r. person. I started working solo at fine dining establishments. I needed "product" to sell at these gigs and eventually created my c.d., "Keep Swinging" in 1996. The group is basically piano trio plus me -- with occasionally string pads.

The material? A dozen standards -- the most requested, sure-fire, winners -- and coincidentally, my favorite tunes.