ABOUT ME

Born on Long Island, New York, I grew up in the New York suburbs and began my musical journey at the age of 4 with piano lessons. I also learned to play the accordion, then the guitar, which led to the formation of several bands and combos that played all over Long Island and the greater New York area.
I left New York in 1967 to attend Arizona State University in Tempe Arizona, where I studied music theory and composition. I never lost my thirst for live performance, though, and went to school by day and played in various bands at night. By the time I was a senior, I was playing 5 nights (or more) a week, so my transition from college to career was easy!

 
By 1973, I was drawn to Los Angeles and the music industry’s lure. My future wife Kay Jeffries and I moved lock, stock and barrel to Southern California and almost immediately found work at the Record Plant, the premier recording studio in the world. As a staff member, I was able to record and play with some of my idols, as well as appear on a number of projects recorded there by regional and national artists.

The economic times weren’t so great, though, so we returned to Arizona (the inspiration for the song “Bye Bye Hollywood”) for a stint as a guitar/piano/mandolin player and singer in a couple of regional powerhouse country-rock bands.
In 1976, I hit the road with Silver Creek, a regional (like the entire Western United States region) band and traveled for nearly 2 years with “General Delivery whatever-town-we-were-playing-in” for an address. The band returned to Los Angeles to record an album for a label owned by country legend Merle Haggard. Corporate shuffling led to the record’s not being released, but we all slipped right in to the Southern California music scene.

Although the band broke up, we continued to play together often, frequently at the legendary Palomino Club in North Hollywood, as members of the house band, The Palomino Riders. I became involved in a large number of projects as a result of those gigs (and my contacts from the last time I had lived in L.A.) which allowed me to play at state and county fairs, festivals and major theme parks, and even form a new band, Prairie Nights, which eventually was signed to record deals with 2 (count ‘em) major labels. Again, however, corporate shuffling resulted in our records’ never being released.     

I returned to Arizona in 1981 to raise a family - I didn’t want to subject a kid to the rigors of life in L.A.- but I continued to perform frequently at nightclubs, concerts, fairs and festivals. I also started a small construction business (Copper J Builders) as a result of the need for an income which would support a growing family and a mortgage.
My son Chris is now grown, and has a production company of his own, producing business meetings and various corporate events, including DEMO, a new technology roll-out.

Currently, I play guitars of all types, acoustic and electric basses, mandolin, accordion, harmonica, piano and keyboards, as well as singing and writing original music.

In 2007 I appeared with Ryan Martin at the TenSleep Music Festival (NoWoodstock) in Ten Sleep, Wyoming.. Ryan plays guitar and leads the band for Lynn Anderson for her festival appearances and continues to appear with me, The CowDudes (our all-purpose band, including country, oldies and music for ALL occasions) and my new band The Wildcatters.

I am also active in traditional and bluegrass music, and Americana, that catch-all category for the uncategorizable, via my solo and combo appearances as well as with the Back Porch Bandits (www.backporchbandits.com)

Right now, it’s a great life that I’m privileged to live with Kay in Phoenix, Arizona.

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