Born on June 27, 1943 in LaSalle, IL, I grew up mostly around Pittsburgh, PA and started playing music at 14 (piano , 5-string banjo, guitar), listening to WWVA Wheeling, WV to Flat & Scruggs, Jimmy Martin & Bill Monroe. My mother was was an airline stewardess in the 1930�fs, flying DC3�fs for American Airlines on route from Memphis to Chicago (back then stewardess�fs had to be 2 things: real good looking and a registered nurse). She would hang out on Beale Street listening to B.B. King and in Chicago she listened to Maceo Merriweather and Albert Ammons, her favorite song being �gCow Cow Boogie�h by Cow Cow Davenport. She encouraged me to learn this style which to me seemed at the time overwhelming. I was studying theory and mostly learning from musicians I played with in bands. Eric Andersen and I had a duo at Hobart college and played the summer of l962 as house band for the Ballad and Banjo concert series in Hyannis Port , MA. We played 2nd act to Peter, Paul & Mary, Dave Guard and The Whiskey Hill Singers , Rambling Jack Elliot , the Tarriers and Eddie Mottau who I later teamed up with. We became Two Guys From Boston playing ragtime , blues and folk music. We recorded for Scepter Records a single entitled Come On Betty Home and an album with John Sebastian, harmonica; Felix Pappalardi, bass; N.D. Smart, drums and Sticks Evans (drummer for the coasters) . Great album but never released perhaps because it was electric music in folk era and not considered commercial. Paul Stookey was the very imaginative and creative producer. Eddie Mottau and I continued as duo playing clubs all over the U.S. and Canada where we met a young guitar player (Neill Young). He�fd knock us out playing Walking The Dog. We strongly advised him to head for N.Y.C. Touring back then was great fun with so many good clubs to work such as the Celler Door, Washington, DC; The Exodus, Denver, CO; but most of all we played a lot at the gas light on MacDougle, St. in Greenwich Village. Eddie and I played 2nd act to Mississippi John Hurt, John Hammond, Ritchie Havens, Chuck and Joni Mitchel , Johnny Cash and even played one night with Son House. For me and so many those were the intensely exciting times. I remember playing basket houses with Jose Feliciano, hanging out with David Cohen (whose style I dug a lot), staying up all night discussing social metaphysics with Phil Ochs. Everyone jamming, studying , hangin out , listening , so many places to work . Then the girl comes round the one you long to meet. Figured if I don�ft get her someone else will and that was not a pleasant thought . Jean and I married June 27,1964 and raised Katherine, Josette , Emily and John. We�fve had nineteen zip codes. Probably being a confirmed traditionalist let me see the dark cloud of drugs mess up so many and kill a lot too. The realities of the music business and the folly of men in this unreal world produced isolationistic desires. Arriving in June, 1974 we spent 21 years on islands off the coast of Southeast Alaska. Human interest thrown in: Alaskan natives love the blues and slide guitar as soon as they hear it. In remote villages you will find rare collections of country & western, mail ordered from unheard of sources. I remember, I remember , I remember Frank Weber and his club The Lemon Tree in Dayton, Ohio. After work one night he took us to Little Mickeys where we heard Norman Smart II sing What'd I Say . Eddie and I called Stookey and asked him if we could have Norman come to New York and play drums on our next session. Norman played great also did back flips down MacDougle St. (l966) through Norman we met Jim Colegrove. Jim played bass with Norman, Eddie and me first as The Bait Shop then Bo Grumpus then Jolliver Arkansaw. We played mostly original songs. Jim would shout the blues and walk on his guitar ( he wore out a fender Jag: switch buttons and bridge parts would roll around the stage) More human interest: In l968 you could go to Mannies in mid town Manhatten and get Teles for $125 and Strats for $ l55 which we did. We had big stacks of Marshalls and could holler, thunk, and shatter ear drums. Ronnie Blake started hittin for us cause Norman started playing for Mountain. Felix was producing us, Cream and Mountain almost all at the same time. Bud Prager our manager prophesied in �f68 that the Cream/Hendrix sound would be all that would be heard for the next forty years. He encouraged me to write more commercially and arranged writing sessions with Carley Simon who needed material for her first album so I wrote Devil Before Daylight: (�c�c something isn�ft right, what�fs the trouble gonna be. Pigeon flew the gate, so hard to wait I�fm blind I couldn�ft see. True love help me don�ft you leave me here,sorrow ain�ft nothing but the salt of your tears). We searched for melody. Something to make it sound romantic. As I write this my mind wonders what Robert Johnson and Ella Fitzgerald could have come up with collaboratively. After New York it was Shady Side, PA and the Pinto Beans. What a band ! Alan Echtler, John Vosel, guitars; Don Czplecky, bass; and I played a Horner Piano. We played six nights a week . Considered changing name to Pittsburgh Mill Hunkeys. Frank Fallon on drums was like Levon Helm ?could sing and play great at same time. The girls wore heels and hot pants . It was the fox cafe for about six months 40 on 20 off. It reminded me of playing the Metrapole in Times Square only then it was 40 on 40 off cause there were two bands with five dancers for each band. That was the gig that drove Colegrove round the bend but I liked it. It was steady work for months on end and I liked to talk to the dancers--Sukie Tawdrys to Columbia law students--but they all could dance! They didn�ft like our two beat rags but they did like the blues except when we played in seven and nine- you know 1212123 or worse yet 121212123. Get it? It was like throwing a measure of waltz time in a boog-a-loo. Eddie and I would sing Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate and the girls would be doing the funky broadway with smoke coming out their ears. A claim to fame just drop a name. Back when Eddie and I were the Two Guys From Boston and playing At the Gaslight, Bob Dylan comes in and wants to try out a new song he just wrote. He asked for a guitar and I handed him mine. He sang Its All Over Now Baby Blue. I thought it was quite something worth remembering . After New York City it was chicken farm then Pinto Beans then Woodstock. After Jolliver Arkansaw ended and we had gone our separate ways, Norman and Jim had a house in Woodstock. My sister Debra was visiting them and called to say that I really should stop by on our way out west. Jean had a travelin�f mind and it seemed at the time quite reasonable to go a thousand miles out of our way. Norman and Jim were doing the Ian Tyson show in Toronto and during time off would recoup in upstate NY and work on their Hungry Chuck album. They called their place the night beat lounge, aka the university of the blues. It was the hang out and jam spot for Rick Danko, Amos Garret, Richard Manuel, Geoff & Maria Muldaur , Paul Butterfield, Bobby Charles, John Earnst. Jean and I stayed in Woodstock 3 years. I helped Garth Hudson build his house. A sensible home of oak and hemlock that reflected the man�fs intellect and character. One day after work he served my helper and myself martinis and played the accordion for us. I told him I played piano in the Jook band and he became helpfully encouraging lending me secret weapons (acoustic piano pick-ups and piano synths) also showed me some old Indian tricks! Jook was quite a band. Colegrove , bass; Billy Munde, drums; myself, piano and David Wilcox (the funky canadian one-there are two you should know) David was a slide guitar wizard early on. He was able to play in the tradition as well as his own innovative style. We recorded an album of original music as well as blues classics. Between the four of us we handled Robert and Muddy quite well. I wish everyone could hear our take on Doc Boggs�f Mistreated Mama and Bukka White�fs Jitterbug Swing.