I can honestly say that I've been playing music in one form or another for most of my life. I started off in a Melbourne, Florida junior high school band back in the 70's. My first instrument was a bass clarinet. Later, I moved onto clarinet followed by the baritone saxophone and finally tenor sax. Sometime in my Freshman year of high school, I picked up a bass guitar.

It was an old Princeton with a Sear's amplifier. During this time, I played prestige's venues such as keg parties and roller rinks.

In the late 70's I moved from Florida to South Carolina, and later to North Carolina with my family. There was no one with a garage band in my neighborhood, so I ended up buying an acoustic guitar so that I could continue entertaining. (Myself mostly.) After I graduated High school, I moved to Sydney, Australia for a while. The Waterfront in front of the Opera house is always packed with street musicians. It was there that I found a partner to play with: a New Zealander named Paul Nora Tao. We picked up enough spare change to keep our selves in Fish and Chips as well as keep up the rent on our $18 a week flat.

My rise to street musician stardom was cut short when I was hit by car as I cruised through the city streets of Sydney on a bicycle. With my bike and guitar demolished, I came back to the States in 1981 where I could be with my family and receive better medical attention.

In 1984, I joined Uncle Sam's Canoe Club, AKA the U.S. Navy. It was sometime in 1985 that I picked up another Bass and started playing with local acts in Norfolk, Virginia. It was in that port city that I met my now wife (who happened to be from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan). I had never even heard the term' Yooper'before then, and I certainly wasn't familiar with the area before she came along.

When I got out of the Navy in 1988, I found it very difficult to try and etch out a living as a musician. I joined a referral service based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota in hopes of getting more work. The referral service kept me busy for a while, mainly one night, or one week stands as a hired gun. Eventually, we relocated to Cleveland, Ohio where I joined an already working band that was going to be touring a southern circuit: Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. It turned out to be the road trip from hell. After only a month or so on the road, the band leader in a drunken argument pulled a gun on the bar owner. Needless to say, we were fired form the circuit and ended up trying to make our way back to Cleveland by auditioning at various clubs as we made our way home. I called my wife from a hotel room and told her that I had decided to give up all the craziness and go back to school.

While a student at Northern Michigan University, I met Walt Lindala who convinced me to come out of retirement and play with the newly forming Flat Broke Blues Band. After the death of Front Man Big Red Williams, we reformed the band with two other players: Ryan Johnson and John Churchville. After releasing a mildly successfully independent C.D., followed by a rigorous regional circuit, the band went on hiatus for about a year. During this time I formed the short lived Nickel Band, and played with various local musicians small Marquette venues from time to time.

Eventually, the current line up of the band came about from some of the best musicians that the area had to offer. They're certainly the best I've ever have worked with in the long term. I've worked almost exclusively with the bands current line for the past three plus years.

 

Copyright © 2005 by the Flat Broke Blues Band
call (906)869-4049 or (906)226-6112 or e-mail the band for booking and band information
photography by Tom Buchkoe / Andy Gregg / Mike Baker