Musician

I grew up hearing and playing music. My mother and grandmother were excellent pianists, able to entertain friends and family for hours with “head arrangements” of popular songs from the 1920s through the 1960s. I started out on piano and baritone ukulele but was soon captivated by the popular music of the 1960s. My high school rock band, Absolute, recorded a 45-RPM “single” at Kennett Sound Studios in Kennett, Missouri in 1969. I am currently working to preserve the studio’s history (see Current Research under Public Historian). As a student at Vanderbilt University, I began writing songs and played in Nashville bars.

After graduating from Vanderbilt, I relocated to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music, a longtime ambition. I continued to perform, working in bars that included a five-hour-a-night, five-day-a-week gig across the street from Fenway Park.

Wanting to be closer to the music business and intrigued by the idea of becoming a professional songwriter, I moved back to Nashville in 1980. After two years of “beating the streets,” I signed an exclusive songwriter agreement with Songwriter Hall of Fame member Bob McDill at Welk Music. While at Welk I had songs recorded by Don Williams, Juice Newton, and Kathy Mattea. After leaving Welk, I formed my own publishing company, Big Muddy Music, and have had additional recordings by performers including Ricky Skaggs and Alabama.

In the 1990s, frustrated by the limitations of commercial songwriting and intrigued by the growing performing songwriter movement, I began performing in folk clubs and coffeehouses. I released four albums of original songs: Departure (1992), Delta Moon (1996), Conversations (2001), and South of St. Louis (2004). Delta Moon spent several weeks in the top forty of Billboard magazine’s Americana chart. My musical travels included three tours in the United Kingdom and Europe.

Since 2005, my live music performances have been limited to Nashville. In 2019 I began a PhD program in Public History at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, focusing primarily on preserving popular music history.