St. Joseph, Missouri
59 Years Old
Singer-Songwriter, Vocalist, Composer

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"I'm still a spring chicken, I've just been plucked a few times, that's all"

BIOGRAPHY

I have been a professional musician since High School, playing in various bands and clubs. In 1969, the year I graduated, I joined a group called Yellow Hair. We based ourselves out of Omaha, NE, as that is where the bass player, Scott McCarl, was from. We had a couple of local 45s "Somewhere" b/w "Talent for Lovin" (this song has since become a Garage Band classic) and "I Wanna Be Free" b/w "Dreamin." The Yellow Hair group remained together for 2 years and broke up in 1971. We had quite a bit of local success and our "Somewhere" 45 ended up at about #10 on the St. Joseph, MO radio chart. Scott would later go on to join the Raspberries. I continued playing in various bands throughout the 70s and in 1979 moved to Florida to join a band, and lived in Florida and Georgia for about 5 years each, playing in various housebands and roadbands, playing in various states; Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama. For the last 10 or so years I have been primarily a stay-at-home musician, writing songs. My songwriting interest started as soon as I picked up a guitar, could play 3 or 4 chords, became an official Beatle-nut, and has continued since. I've always been dabbling at writing songs, my first love besides guitar. I write all styles; country rock, blues, folk, pop, some guitar instrumentals, etc.

LEVEL

semi-pro

GENRES

Pop, Country, Rock

Contact

Administrative: Jeff Chandler

INSTRUMENTS

guitaracoustic / guitarelectric / vocals

INFLUENCES

My grandmother (Ruth Nalley), who played guitar and sang and who inspired me to to take guitar lessons, The Beatles, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Harry Nilsson, Scott McCarl, The Eagles, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Stevie Wonder, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, 50s/60s/70s/80s rock, 50s/60s/70s/80s country, the funky 70s, and everyone and everything else that fell in and out of the vinyl grooves..

I AM INTERESTED IN

in co writing online
in networking with songwriters
in pitching songs to artist
in pitching songs to tv
in getting a publishing deal

I WRITE:

For a living

I Also Write:
by myself
for myself
for others

I Prefer To Write:
lyrics
melody
music

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Cadillac Sky

Cadillac Sky should be a lot more tired. It’s early Saturday afternoon at MerleFest and the band–Bryan Simpson, Matt Menefree, Andrew Moritz, Ross Holmes and newest addition David Mayfield–has already logged two performances on the day....

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Sessions: David Bazan

It was pretty slow. I mean, I played [the songs] on acoustic guitar for a long time, but I didn’t know how to transfer them to the other format. I didn’t want it to be a solo acoustic record. I wanted there to be bells and whistles and full band arrangements even if I didn’t want it necessarily to be electric guitar rock....

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“It’s always slightly confounding to me whenever Vetiver is depicted with the same tropes that people have read off of press sheets,” says Andy Cabic. “The same sort of milestones get mentioned but then no one really digs to find out that there are those other things going on.”

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Spoon: The Power of Transference

In 1995, Spoon were often dubbed “the next Pixies.” The tag never quite fit, but the two did share a love for writing glorious pop songs and then shrouding them with walls of noise and mystery. Over 15 years, the Austin, Texas band have survived lineup shuffles and early record label neglect, finding their signature style with 2001’s Girls Can Tell and quietly building one of the strongest rock catalogs of the decade.