My Americana Musical Journey

In tracing what has lead me to my current state as an Americana artist I come back often to two significant releases. The first was Lucinda Williams’ Grammy award winning Car Wheels on a Gravel Road in 1998. The songwriting, guitar playing, and singing just knocked me out. There was something about that sound that spoke to me (and millions of others). Two years later, in 2000 I joined singer-songwriter, Calvin McElroy’s band, A Bubble Off Plumb as his bassist. Calvin turned me on to Steve Earle who had just released Transcendental Blues which remains my favorite of his and one of my all time favorite albums. Calvin was like Steve in many ways. He blended a wide range of influences: Celtic, blues, country, folk, classic rock, cajun, western, psychedelia…That band paved the way for me. We played as a trio mostly, but sometimes with a violin player and for awhile with the late, great John Havard from The Natives on guitar and accordion. We played both acoustic and electric songs and Calvin’s songs were great. It was also during that time that Calvin got me interested in learning more about Gram Parsons. In a short time I read Ben Fong-Torres bio of Gram, grabbed every recording he ever did and became somewhat obsessed with his music. The final piece may have been seeing the great Johnny Cash bio-pic Walk the Line a few years later in 2005. That really helped shape the direction of my just forming band, The New Americans. That and playing with Mike Grow who allowed me to explore this new genre by being able to play the lap steel and mandolin in addition to his great guitar. There are other artists in this vein I might mention like the Jayhawks and Ryan Adams, but I think this really is where it all got started.