In the beginning...

March 12, 2025

When I reflect upon my childhood, I recall that much of the time I felt jacketed in overwhelming feelings of worthlessness, rejection, abandonment, fear and depression. As a child, I thought all of these thoughts and emotions were normal. It was not until I would experience a trans-formative moment, and that deep within the heart, much later in life, that I would then by contrast experience redemptive thoughts and emotions which whispered hope and purpose for my life.

My introduction to music as a child was the first that I can recall of having discovered brief glimpses of happiness; that, and the joy of interacting with animals of all kinds. Music especially availed reprieve from my dark emotions, which were often crippling. In and through the music I heard in my home however, played by my mother on a large early-60s-made Magnavox floor console record player, I would experience happiness, on average for duration's of 3 to 3.5 minutes or so – the average duration of a given song on an LP.

Uniformly, my mother’s preferred genre in those early days late 1960s) was that of R&B, Soul, and the general “Motown” sound, which included many of the artists gaining ground in Philadelphia during this era. It was all perceptively lumped into Motown, to me.

I clearly recall Fats Domino, The Stylistics, The Temptations, The Supremes, The Isley Brothers, Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, etc. My Mother would crank this music typically while cleaning house. As a given song would then linger in my head once out of the house, it would sooth me and assuage the deeply troubling thoughts and emotions which otherwise plagued me, and which, once again, I thought to be normal.

Born in the Summer of 1960, which duly corresponded with the birth of a distinct era in music, I found myself initially lost in this Motown sound, followed by the gradual onset of familiarity with The Mamas and the Papas, Steppenwolf, Jefferson Airplane, The Moody Blues, Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Cream, Iron Butterfly, etc. It was then as I transitioned into my teens in the 1970s (1973 onward) that I would discover Robin Trower, Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush, Rory Gallagher; the continued evolution of The Isley Brothers; CSN&Y, Johnny Winter, the Vaughan brothers (Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimmy Lee Vaughan – via early bootleg recordings – long before their national/international fame), etc.

I would go on to embrace the soft-rock, folk-rock, and what I’ve long coined pop-rock represented in Seals & Crofts, America, Bruce Cockburn, Gordon Lightfoot, Carol King and Todd Rundgren. Into my late-teens I then discovered Fusion – a Jazz-Rock hybrid, most notably represented by Steely Dan and their host of world-class guitarists which included Larry Carlton, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, Walter Becker, Denny Dias, and later Jon Herrington, as well as an amazing accompanying vocalist in the form of one Carolyn Leonhart.

Into my ‘30s I would also embrace Alternative in the form of Natalie Merchant/10,000 Maniacs, R.E.M., Bjork, and too many others to list. I would also learn to love many emerging Blues-Rock greats such as Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks (who later formed the Tedeschi-Trucks Band – one of my all-time favorite bands), Sue Foley, and much later Justin Johnson.

It was also into my ‘30s that I would come to terms with the reality that the music which most profoundly gripped my soul was that which also redeemed my soul—Spontaneous/Improvisational Worship—the worship of the Lamb of God—Christ Jesus—the Son of God. For it was during spontaneous and improvisational worship that I would find myself blanketed and absorbed in the tangible presence of the Holy Spirit, wherein I found myself intimating with the Lord from the deepest places in the heart—places which had been numbed by the ravages of trauma early in life, to include additional layers of trauma of my own doing—rooted in the dictates of deeply rooted and unhealed wounds. It was worship, then, that I discovered moves my soul like no other music.

It would not be until sometime into my late ‘30s that I would also discover a genre of music which deeply stirred my soul—largely because many of the notable artists therein sang and played from depths of their soul which transcended much of the more popularized genres as I grew up with; this genre represented by the Delta Blues and Chicago Blues, which served foundational for every genre I had learned to love while growing up, and beyond. I would discover additionally that many of the Delta Blues/Chicago Blues greats had deep gospel roots and gospel influences of their own, often engaging music initially, and while very young, within church walls. The more notable influences within this genre include Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Robert Johnson, Ma Rainey, Charlie Patton, Son House, Howlin’ Wolf, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Willie Brown, Lead Belly, Mamie Smith, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Memphis Minnie; and a tad later John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Buddy Guy and Robert Cray.

Along the path of my musical journey, and intermixed among many distinct genres, I would also discover Manhattan Transfer, Triumph, Earl Klugh, Dream Theater, Tangerine Dream, Its a Beautiful Day, Buffalo Springfield, Camel, Roxy Music, King Crimson, The Cure, Samantha Fish, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and the profundity of Baroque Era music, most notably represented by Bach, Vivaldi, Handel and Telemann—and its characteristic “polyphonic texture” – defined by intertwining melodies (discovered while studying the concept of “Accelerated Learning” in my early college days).

In reflecting upon all of my influences of 60 years or so, I realized I’ve misplaced a few artists by genre, as many of them represent what I consider to be more so trans-genre and/or the blurred vacillation between genres, some artists of whom within their longstanding careers have spanned Country, Folk, Folk-Rock, Pop and Pop-Rock. I also realize I’ve overlooked some of the more personally meaningful Country artists such as Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Crystal Gayle, Johnny Cash, Ronnie Milsap, Don Conlee and Don Williams.

I look back upon a lifetime of musical discovery, to confess that it was right around age 21 that I met with a sobering realization—I had no musical gifting or ability whatsoever. I had picked up the guitar, sought to learn to play it, and in doing so was about as graceful and adaptive as a fish attempting to ride a bicycle. Since that time, I have plugged away for 43 years to date, to arrive at what I consider to be an intermediate level of playing. I have been very stubborn in my persistence on the guitar, refusing to accept no for an answer. I continue to press onward, daily.

At this juncture I’ve begun to write a few songs and have more recently recorded a few, which I will post hereafter. In doing so, my sole purpose is that to simply share my journey and perhaps engage with others abroad on the topic. I’ll also seek to pen ongoing, that which might encourage and inspire as I share my musical and spiritual journey.