I was born in Preston Idaho, home of Napoleon Dynamite.
My father was a music teacher and my first band director.
My mother was a ballroom dance teacher.
When I was 7 or 8 years old I heard my first live rock band when my mother took me along to see an audition for a band she was considering for a dance she was organizing.
I later saw an electric guitar in the local hardware store and I wanted one. My parents bought me a cheap plastic guitar with a tiny amp that worked by sticking a suction cup microphone onto the guitar. My brother broke the neck off 3 days later.
After living in the far north of Montana for a few years, my father took a job in what was then known as Western Samoa (now simply known as Samoa).
I had begun playing my dad’s trumpet when I was 8 and we moved to Samoa when I was 9. In Samoa I played trumpet in my dad’s band class and learned ukulele in my grade school class.
I was too young for the high school dances but our house was just across the school grounds from the open air gym. When the bands would start playing the dances after dark, I would crank open my windows and lie in bed listening to the local Samoan bands playing songs by The Beatles and Credence Clearwater Revival among others.
After moving back to the US and Utah, I continued playing trumpet in Jr High. I also started messing around with my mother’s old antique mandolin.
On one visit to my great grandmother in California, she gave me her old acoustic guitar, my first of many guitars (I currently own 46).
Later I finally scraped together a few dollars and bought my first electric guitar. It was a cheap Japanese thing that cost $15. I didn’t have an amp but a friend gave me an old tube reel-to-reel tape recorder that I could plug into.
I took a couple of community ed classes and learned basic chords and I started playing in my basement bedroom every chance I got, sometimes 6 or 7 hours a day if I could.
I formed various bands with friends and played a couple of school dances and assemblies.
I switched to French Horn in High School and joined the Granite Youth Symphony, an audition only district wide group made up of the top musicians in the school district. With the Symphony, High school band, and orchestra, I toured the Western US and Canada for 3 years. On the final tour to Canada, my rock band joined the symphony, playing dances after the symphony concert.
After HS I received a music scholarship to the University of Utah.
I played for the marching band and played halftime shows for the San Diego Chargers in the old Charger Stadium and for the Denver Broncos in the old Mile High Stadium.
I believe that the the largest crowd I have played for was approximately 65,000 people.
With the university symphony band I recorded two albums and recorded one album with the marching band.
During my college years I began to play guitar in pit orchestras for musical theater. I also began playing guitar synthesizer to take the place of strings and organ when needed. One show had only 4 guitar chords in the entire show so I played the violin part on the guitar synth for the show.
Some of the shows I played:
Grease
Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
Little Shop of Horrors
Jesus Christ Superstar
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream-coat
West Side Story
In 1987 I opened a Nestles Crunch bar and found myself an instant winner of $50,000. I quit my day job and played theater gigs before giving up music for mountaineering.
In the early 90s a wrong number call lead me back into music. At the audition, I turned around in the driveway to leave, twice, because the band sounded so bad. I finally went inside because I keep my word. The band was awful but paid well and through them I met my wife. If I had walked away I never would have met her.
I’ve played just about every style of music including:
Classic Rock
Pop
Oldies
Country
Mexican
Jam Band
Symphonies
Marches
Jazz
Notable associations:
Boots Randolph the Yakety Sax Man – I get a bit sad every year when I hear him on the radio playing the sax solo on the classic record ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’
Doug Stone – country superstar from the early 90s with 8 number 1 songs. I wish I could have played on those hits but I got to play guitar for him at a country festival.
Kaleb Austin – currently has at least 3 number 1 country hits on Spotify and has had great success with TikTok
Gina Osmond and the Bone Band – Donny and Marie Osmond’s niece – I replaced the bands deceased guitarist and when Gina joined she brought in a friend that edged me out of the band. He died and they called me to play but I was too busy at the time. They got another guitarist but he turned out to be flaky and had drug problems so they called and begged me to came back.
The Pranksters – a Grateful Dead tribute band with Mike Lookinland, the actor that played Bobby on the Brady Bunch
Silver King Rocking Company – a Grateful Dead/Jerry Garcia inspired jam band with the current keyboardist for the Doors
Mark Owens – country artist that made it part way through The Voice
Steven Bosco – another up and coming country artist
Toby Keith – I was hired to be his bass player for an episode of Touched by an Angel. The scenes got cancelled and I never got to meet him up close. I waved at him while he sat in his trailer while we waited outside in the base camp parking lot.
Pamela Lind – a private eye/podcaster/musician that was a friend of Boots Randolph and got me that gig.
Heart & Soul – an organization that provides music to care facilities, senior centers, hospitals, and underserved and isolated people. A great charity. https://heartsoul.org
Albums, Singles, and other Recordings:
Passage – a classic rock band
…from Beyond (guitar, bass) One song reissued by singer Scott Hongell reach number 8 in Canada
Passage (guitar)
Los Versatiles – Oldies and Mexican Cumbias and Rancheras
Estylo Fresco (guitar)
Pamela Lind – oldies
In a Heartbeat – featuring Boots Randolph (Bass, Guitar)
Ute Marching Band
#1 (Mellophone)
University of Utah Symphony Band
#1 (French Horn)
#2 (French Horn)
Patrick Brown – pianist
Patrick Brown and Friends (bass, guitar)
Mark Owens – country artist from The Voice
Can’t Win For Losing (guitar)
Doug Worthen
Eagle Gate – Soundtrack for Eagle Gate college recruitment DVD
Glass -single with Grady Garrard (guitar, vocals)
Starfield – single with Grady Garrard (guitar)
Soul Mate punk version (all instruments)
Sharabby
Brighter Days – pop? (Producer, composer, guitars) Never completed final vocals or mix before the singer’s drama collapsed the project.
JT Hilton – karaoke backing tracks (all instruments and drum programming) Teenaged JT discovered boys and abandoned the project.
Frosty Cash America – stop motion video and reworking of a classic Christmas song for an ad campaign contest for Cash America Pawn Shops (all instruments, vocals, video editing)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIsxugLxZH0
Other Interests
After quitting music I was training to climb Mt Everest and was accepted to be a low level porter on the North Face in Tibet for Utahns on Everest. Couldn’t raise the cash so I didn’t get to go.
Attempted to climb Mt Whitney (highest peak in the lower 48 states) twice in winter. Turned back but survived both trips.
Completed a solo traverse across the Uintah Mountains from Wyoming to Utah after a Wyoming band gig.
I am now an avid fan of Ultra Light backpacking.
Traveled to Fiji on a humanitarian trip with my wife’s company footing the bill.
My writing has usually taken the form of poetry disguised as song lyrics. So far, no one I’ve worked with has been up for the challenge of using my literary masterpieces for songs.
I’ve written several unpublished short stories.
I have completed my first novel and I’m about halfway through book 2 of the series. Truth be known, most of the time I’d rather be an author writing in a quiet cabin in the woods, except I don’t have a cabin or quiet time.
Though I was discouraged from creating art by a less than inspiring art teacher in Jr High, I began painting when I went back to college as an adult. I have created over 100 works so far. I have resisted marketing my art so that I could keep it as a relaxing hobby rather than a business like music has become.
I have 3 college degrees
AS Graphic Design
AS Web Design
BS Technical Management
My day job is working for the Salt Lake City International Airport as a Graphic Designer in the sign shop.
I tell people I color pictures and sing songs for a living.
I have been married for 31 years to the woman I met because of a wrong number.
I have two grown daughters and reside with the two cats they left behind when they moved out.
