Learned how to play piano from my paternal grandfather. His skill as a folk-music pianist gave me deep respect for the folk genre of Appalachia. This respect for music evolved into a pursuit with other instruments, such as trumpet, French horn, and Mellophone, all of which guaranteed placement in the school band. I enjoyed every moment.
After high school, my academic pursuits took over most of my free time and I wasn’t able to find time to dedicate to musical interests. After I graduated college and joined the US Air Force, I was stationed all over the world, eventually winding up in South Korea. A good friend gave me their harmonica, and I spent my free time re-embracing my fascination with melody, timing, and did my best to emulate popular tunes of Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, and John Denver. I still have that harmonica today! :-) During my time in the Air Force, I became an officer and was stationed in Europe, again without much time to play music, and only limited time to even listen to my favorites. Met the girl of my dreams and we would up in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where I completed my commission, was honorably discharged, and became a Software Engineer for Northrop Grumman. It was then I crossed paths with some co-workers who played in a local band, called Lesser Mortals. They needed someone who could play keyboards, write lyrics, and contribute to vocals if necessary. That fascination from my youth sprung to life and we played gigs all over south Colorado. We even cut an album. That however, was the extent to our music success. I stopped working with them but continued to write music, lyrics, and worked on mostly Jazz and Blues compositions. I began to write in other areas, namely screenwriting, and wrote over 35 scripts. Some of my screenplays won awards in Burbank, Pasadena, and Phoenix. This led to a ‘script-cleanup’ job with reality TV. I wrote for such shows as ‘Big Bully Beatdown’, and ‘Flavor of Love’, and indie shorts such as ‘The Rendezvous’, and ‘Hacked to the Future’. Again, my quest for success seemed to stagnate. In 2005, I was involved in a major car accident that injured my right hand – leaving three fingers without feeling. I had to learn how to write, type, and perform basic functions all over again. But I didn’t stop writing music and lyrics. I would write poems almost every day, and kept notebooks with future intentions written in the margins. With the advent of digital recording, sampling, and mastering. I played with many programs that helped me construct compositions for others to play. I also began writing a fiction novel in 2024, released it in March of 2025, entitled ‘My Last Real Summer’ and it has sold well on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million. During this period, I began converting many of my screenplays into novellas, and one stood out as having larger potential that most. The series is called ‘Fauna’, and centers on a group of magical, intelligent, talking animals in a secluded forest. Then an idea struck me. I toyed around with the idea of MUSIC being embedded into the book somehow, either through QR codes, or simple downloads; that the music would help tell the story of the characters. This led to my collaboration with a local band called ‘Wild Hunters’, and we have created 2 albums of songs for the Fauna series thus far, releasing them both in 2025. Two tunes on these albums have received limited success on Spotify, ITunes, and Pandora. This again led to more song-writing, and more collaborations with other artists, such as local bands, Velvetune, Ohmicron, RavenHeart, and Sora & The Shine. My love for songwriting has never been more fervent. I attempt to write some every day – rain or shine. One day I came across the Talent is Timeless website, and a few of my friends and collaborators encouraged me to enter the competition. So here I am, rolling the dice, hoping others will feel my appreciation for music in my work. If you get the chance to listen, please give me some feedback! Hopefully you like what you hear!