"I've lived so many places, it's hard to say exactly where I'm from. I was born in Greenwich, CT and lived in New Canaan until I was nine or ten. I lived in Solvang, CA during junior high but moved to Cape Cod, MA by high school. I studied ( if you want to call it that) guitar with Bill Connors in New York City for a winter, but I was a bad student. I'd make a tape of myself playing scales for half an hour then I'd just play the tape while I read comic books or took a nap. This way everyone downstairs thought I was really working hard. It's funny now but I'd tan my own hide if I'd caught myself doing that today!

I convinced some people I had real means of becoming a rock star in Japan during the 1980s. They sent me over armed with a list of coveted phone numbers and connections. I would make appointments with record company people based on enthusiastic goals and credentials veiled in a slight language barrier. But by the time lunch was served they usually had figured out that I was just a thoughtless kid with a single copy of his garage rock band cassette who somehow ended up lost on the other side of the world. It was great fun while it lasted.

I moved around a lot with no idea of what I wanted to do, play, or be. Several years of this found me working in Tower Records in New York City. That's where I heard my first Bob Wills records, also Jimmy Bryant, Hank Williams, Eddie Lang, Johnny Gimble, Bix Biederbecke, and Chet Atkins.

This music was all so different and exciting I wanted to play it all! At first it was the hot guitar breaks and early-style steel and pedal steel that roped me in, but over the next several years I began to listen to the singers and other soloists -- violin, trumpet, etc.--with interest. By 1996 I had decided to concentrate on western swing and the music that influenced its great soloists.

I've been lucky to meet a pantheon of fascinating, talented characters and friends who have all helped boost me along with their teaching and the opportunities they've given me. I played with Tom Clark's "Born in a Barn" band for years in New York City -- weekly gigs where he would egg me on to play faster and crazier. Lenny Kaye and Patti Smith invited me to play lead on a song for her "Gone Again" record. Guitarist/teacher Richard Lieberson in New York City gave me much insight on traditional and authentic playing styles and was my compass for finding rare and seminal recordings. Members of the original Western Caravan have made me feel legitimate, as have Cliff Bruner and Johnny Gimble through their inspiration and encouragement. Even now, living in Texas and traveling the around the country consistently as we do lends an abstract unity with the players of 70 years ago."