Music


Painting and music have always gone hand in hand for me, and I have pursued both for nearly my entire life. I have chosen to make my living primarily from painting, but continue my exploration of roots music as a parallel. On guitar, it has always been early Country blues and Ragtime fingerstyle guitar focusing on the styles of people like Robert Johnson, Blind Blake, Reverand Gary Davis,Tampa Red and others. The originals I write are closely related to this style also. On banjo, I have focused on the early Southern Clawhammer styles, particuarly West Virginia and Roundpeak style Banjo, and on Ukulele, I seem to be stuck playing a lot of the Tin Pan Alley music and tunes I heard growing up. I'll soon be trying to finish up a new solo record incorporating all of these sounds. I also plan to start posting MP3 clips of some of the new recordings very soon on this page so you can keep in touch with what I am doing in this area.

I have played solo shows all over the Northeast and the South, into Colorado and also Italy, mostly in the Tuscany region. I have also played a good number of the regional and National Blues and Folk festivals from Florida to Maine. Over the years I have opened shows and shared the stage with such notable musicians as Taj Mahal, Dave Van Ronk, David Bromberg, John Hammond, Elizabeth Cotten, Pat Donahue, Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, Jimmie Dawkins, Dan Hicks, J Geils Band, Nickolette Larson, my good friends, Steve James, Paul Geremia, Paul Rishell and John Mooney among many others. I got to record 3 CD's with the band Roll and Tumble with which I played with for nearly nine years and have been a guest guitarist on several others. The last one we did, called Rattle that thing" also features John Mooney as a guest artist on some cuts. Hear some tunes here.

I have dabbled with building my own instruments since the early 80's and have built a number of my own guitars and banjos. In recent years I have been building a few more under the watchful eye of Julius Borges, who as the owner of Borges Guitars in Little Ma. probably builds some of the finest instruments on the planet.I completed buiding my 11th guitar (a Rosewood 000 cutaway style 12 fret) and play that consistantly in my Florida shows. I recently put the finishing touches on a Brazilian Rosewood"Gibson Style" 185. There is also a Gibson Style J35 that has just been finished, and that may well be my last one as I just don't seem to have the time for this any more. I think I would rather spend my time playing and learning to play better.

I also have an Artist relationship with National Resophonic Guitars in San Luis Obispo which are still my favorite instruments of all to play, and I work hard to promote their guitars on all of my shows. I will always have at least three of these on stage with me at any show and I enjoy demonstrating and explaining the history and the differences between models of these intriguing instruments. They have built me several exquisite custom instruments, including a new "Custom Style O Ukulele" which is incredible to say the least, not to mention a Custom Estralita Baritone 12 string made out of Flamed Walnut and is a "one of a kind" instrument. You can hear me playing this guitar on their website media soundclips: http://www.nationalguitars.com/admin/mp3comparedeploy/soundclips.html.

They have just completed an El Trovador Custom Baritone guitar for me made out of Master Grade flamed maple that is one of the nicest Resophonic instruments I have seen or played. That will be the guitar that I will be using for all of the Blind Willie McTell and Leadbelly style music tuned down to a C or open B for that low growl.

I am currently playing around the Southwest Florida area both solo and with my blues trio "SPOONFUL", featuring Bill Koetting on acoustic bass and Barry Johnson on lead guitar. These are fun shows and highly recommended if you like real traditional old time blues. I still hope to finish the recording of my new Solo record as time allows, and with any luck it will be released sometime this Winter.