Music always played a central role in my life.
My earliest memories of the importance of music came from listening to KFRC on the radio, soaking up all the hits, reveling in pop masters like the Spinners, Temptations, Jay Ferguson, Henry Gross, the Beach Boys, Bread, Elton John and so many more.
A little band called Led Zeppelin kept popping up here and there, but their ethereal and powerful music was quickly subdued by the horrible strains of Leo Sayer.
Then in 1978, I got serious about playing the guitar when my sister’s boyfriend was strumming the opening strains of “More Than a Feeling” on our front lawn one summer night.
“How long have you been playing?”, I breathlessly asked.
“Two weeks!”
This was the art for me!
Over the years, I kept playing guitar, and for a while there, I got relatively good at it. At one point, I even did a workmanlike job of playing the solo in “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me”, which is still truly beyond me to this day.
Fortunately, the only somewhat easier “Eruption” was the coin of the guitar hero realm, and I passed muster on that, performing the song at my high school senior show.
Quickly thereafter, I joined a top-40 band called Secrets, and we played throughout Contra Costa County and even did a road trip or two.
I first tried moving to LA in 1984. Making money proved so difficult in the San Fernando Valley (where I somehow knew I had to be), that I ended up moving further and further south, until I ended up even considering moving to Dana Point.
Before heading that far south (which would have been lovely, I’m sure), I ran out of money and moved back to the Bay Area.
Eventually, I went back to college, earning my BSCS in 1989 from California State East Bay.
Music continued to pull at me.
So in 1991, I put together all the songs I had ever written, and produced my very first album, “Proof Through the Night”.