in his own words...
| I
grew up in Roslindale, Massachusetts, and not far from a 350-acre
tree preserve called the Arnold Arboretum. I roamed the Arboretum
as a young boy and young man, through its trails and woods and rolling
fields -- a beautiful place filled with trees, flowers and birds.
I recall with great fondness two neighbors: one from Germany,
the other from Italy. One had chickens and both of these men had
gardens and fruit trees, and I learned from both of them how to grow
vegetables. I was about 10 or 11, and I have raised a
garden nearly every since. In grade school I picked up the guitar, flirted with an electric and bass guitar for awhile, and eventually settled exclusively on the acoustic. As a teenager and during my early 20's I spent a lot of hours with my guitar everyday, up in my room listening to records by Leo Kottke , John Fahey, John Renborne, Burt Jansch, and Peter Lang -- unraveling some of their songs. I listened to tons of music, lots of guitar music, and even more classical music. Whatever the genre, I was particularly drawn to the instrumental sections and pieces. |
| Solo
instrumentals played on the guitar particularly hooked-me -- everything
from the old blues and ragtime players like Blind Blake, Rev. Gary
Davis, right up to Doc Watson, Larry Coryell, Norman Blake, and Jeff
Beck -- a whole legion of great guitar players, and styles. (I
could easily fill a page with the names of amazing guitar players
I've admired!) I enjoy it all, though to this day it's the music of Kottke and J.S. Bach that I'm always in the mood for. I studied classical composition in college and took jazz guitar lessons with Alex Von Hoffman. I later met Pete Kairo and Pete really enlarged my world further and taught me some ragtime and other fingerstyle techniques, including his own style and a few of his arrangements. My wife Laura and I built our house in a rural hill- town in western Massachusetts, near wild lands and woodlands. That ages-old agricultural self-subsistence tradition which my old neighbors on Orange Street lived by when I was a kid, still resonates with me. They've gone the way of all flesh, and so now it's our time for awhile. We still work a garden each year by faith and hope and we are grateful for the bounty which feeds us and the pleasure its work gives .  By happenstance we landed in a small and friendly
community, wherein over the years we've befriended many warm and
open-hearted people. We are fortunate to share in a community aware
of itself, where many folks love and care for this place, and keep an
eye out for their neighbors. |
