I started playing piano at age 7 and at 9 played trumpet in brass competitions up through high school. I also learned how to play bass. I started college at Purdue University to play in a folk rock band. I then shifted over to bluegrass after hearing and becoming friends with JD Crowe and the New South, establishing a life-long friendship. I ran sound for him at Arnie’s Pub, where the New South played six nights a week for six-week stints every winter I was in college.

     I toured the hotel lounge circuit, tri-state night clubs and ran festival sound through-out college with The Homestead Band ( five-piece traditional and contemporary bluegrass with my eventual wife). Upon graduation, I ended up moving to Chicago to play and tour with Jethro Burn and his various iterations. I returned to grad school at Ball State and continued playing the lounge and festival circuit with my banjo playing partner in the Dusty Rose Band and eventually migrated to Lexington Kentucky, where I still reside.

     Over the next 20 years, I managed a sound company and served as a session musician / band member, while supporting the efforts of my partner, who played banjo for The New Coon Creek Girls till 1992. I remarried in 2000 and moved to Louisville to run my business. I slowed down my music career to concentrate on that. After severely breaking a hand in 2003, I took a 15-year hiatus and finally began playing again in 2018. My interests shifted to jazz, western swing, and blues as a means to relearn my instrument and rehab playing as a session musician. 

 

Bands, Sound Companies and Festival Promotions:

Panther Mountain Express.         Folk and Bluegrass                                       74-76

Homestead                                   Traditional & Contemporary Bluegrass      76-79

Jethro Burns                                 Jazz and Swing Backup Group                    79-81

Dusty Rose Sound Company    Festival and Outdoor Events Sound            81-85

Dusty Rose Band                        Contemporary Bluegrass and Swing           82-84

Dix River Productions                 Sound, Show Management and Logistics  85-2004

 

Clients:

The New Coon Creek Girls, Bluetown, JD Crowe & the New South, Bluegrass Cardinals, Larry Stevenson, Osborn Brothers, John Michael Montgomery, Exile, Les Taylor, Breedings Music Club, The Corner Pocket Music Club, Meadowgreen Music Park, Montgomery & Gentry, 

 

Highbridge Band                        Contemporary Bluegrass                               87-89

Red Mile Bluegrass Festival     Bluegrass Festival, Lexington, KY                 89-93

Bluetown                                     Traditional Bluegrass                                       90-93

Osborn Bros Bluegrass Fest.    Bluegrass Festival, Hyden, Kentucky           90-94

Red Mule Bluegrass Fest.         Bluegrass Festival, Berea, Kentucky             94-97

Thunder & the Hosscats           Blues and Western Swing                               95-97

The Blue Dawg Band                Swing and Contemporary Bluegrass             97-2001

JD Crowe Bluegrass Fest.        Bluegrass Festival, Wilmore, Kentucky          2000-04