First let me say that as I look through the other musicians profiles here some of them are pretty brief. This one won't be. I'm an old guy. I've had a lot of experiences and I've got a lot to say about them. Sue me. I started playing when I was 11 and the year was 1965. A group of kids from the local jr high came to the elementary school I was in and played a show (all instrumental, Ventures, surf music, stuff like that). I was hooked.

The first major concert I went to was B.B. King at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY (my mom worked there at the time and scored a pair of free tickets). This was probably 1967 or'68. I went with my friend Gary Ohlhorst, who was the drummer in the band I was in at the time. What was memorable about it? It was B.B. King, do you really have to ask?

My current favorite is a late '40s Magnatone lap steel that I have modified extensively. For an amp I'm using a Fender Champion 110 that I picked up at a yard sale for 20 bucks. The only stompbox I am using is a Behringer Vintage Tube Monster overdrive (I replaced the original pre-amp tube with a 12AT7 - BIG improvement). Any other effects you might hear on my lap steel recordings are courtesy of Audacity.

Talented and open minded people. The kind of people who chew their food to the rhythm of the music playing in their heads....

My father was one of my earliest major musical influences for two reasons. First he owned the guitar I learned to play on and had no problem making it available to me. It was a Gibson J-45 that he bought used in the late 1940's after he got home from the war. I'm looking at it as I write this. The second reason is because he exposed me (inadvertently) to forms of music that I normally would not have heard. My dad really enjoyed Country music but there was no local stations that played it at the time. He had a friend from the war who lived in the south who would record shows off of WWVA in West Virginia onto reel to reel tapes and then send them up to my dad. When I was little my dad had a woodworking shop in the basement of our house and in addition to his day job he would make money doing custom cabinetry for a few local contractors. Every night as I fell asleep he would be working down in his shop and listening to these tapes. I heard a lot of bluegrass, western swing and hillbilly gospel music, none of it written later than 1960. I didn't particularly care for any of it at the time, but later on when my musical horizons began to expand past the music that was popular with all my peers I discovered that my early exposure to this music had seeped in to my playing and had given me a musical vocabulary that I wouldn't have otherwise possessed. My dad passed away in 1980 when I was 25 years old, and not a day goes by that I don't miss him. OK, that's enough sentimental crap... let's move on to my other influences. Because I play a number of instruments, and really enjoy playing in a wide variety of musical genres, I've had several major influences for each of them. I tended to switch back and forth between bass and guitar so let's start with guitar. In the early years it was all rock all the time. First it was Jimi Hendrix followed closely by Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, and Johnny Winter. Then in 1970 I saw NRBQ perform at the Clinton Hollow Rec Park in upstate NY and they had this astounding guitarist named Steve Ferguson who shoved me off in a whole new direction. These guys ignited an interest in not only where music was headed to, but also where it had come from, what had come before that was the foundation of the music I was enjoying now. After that I was open to lots of different players in many different styles (Frank Zappa, Carl Perkins, Muddy Waters, Chet Atkins, Roy Clark, Bashful Brother Oswald, Robert Fripp, John Lee Hooker, Al Anderson, Little Walter, Steve Howe, Gary Green, Vaughn Brothers, Danny Gatton, Allan Holdsworth, and so on...). Suddenly those recordings that my dad had been playing all those years became a lot more interesting.

I started playing bass early on mainly because I just loved the sound of the thing (and also as one of the few bass players in my school I was always busy playing or jamming with somebody). First came the Jacks (Bruce and Cassidy). Then, at the NRBQ show where I first saw Steve Ferguson, I was introduced to their bass player, Joey Spampinato. For a while there I couldn't figure out what it was about the way he played that worked so well. The tone he uses and the peculiar right hand technique he has sometimes makes it difficult to hear exactly what it is he is doing, but whatever it was it made the rhythm section of the band really percolate. This was my introduction to the Groove, which in turn opened me up to funk and players like Larry Graham and Rocco Prestia. Shortly after that I discovered Yes and the world of English progressive rock and players like Chris Squire, Ray Bennett (Flash), and Ray Shulman (Gentle Giant). In the mid-70s my friend Nick gave me a copy of King Crimson's USA album and their bassist, John Wetton, hit me like a ton of bricks (that great big nasty TONE he got on that record just amazed me). After that I saw Tony Levin play with Peter Gabriel, and then later with the new version of Crimson which got me started playing the Stick.

About 2007 I picked up an old lap steel and in short order I discovered Hawaiian music (Sol Hoopii, Benny Nahawi), early western swing (Joaquin Murphy with Tex Williams, Bob Dunn), Bob Brozman (who pretty much defies categorization), and Sacred Steel players like Aubrey Ghent, The Campbell Brothers, The Lee Boys. I also really like Steve Cunningham, a really amazing player down in Atlanta.

I don 't play in a band at this point in my life. Right around 2001 I was diagnosed with a rather painful ulnar nerve impingement in my left elbow and playing guitar or bass for any length of time really aggravated it. I still collaborate with former bandmates for songwriting and recording projects though. My current focus is on the lap steel. I've found that the left hand position allows me to play without any discomfort. Also I have a background in woodworking and cabinet making and have recently starting applying those skills to build lap steels for myself and others. As for former bands: Right out of high school ('72) I was invited to play bass in a band that was being put together by former NRBQ guitarist Ken Sheehan. I did that for about a year and a half before switching back to guitar to play in a very busy local club band. When the bass player quit I switched back to bass and we continued in the clubs until it fell apart. After that I pretty much stuck to the bass in a number of bands that slowly moved away from club music and more towards progressive and hard rock, with a few side ventures into western swing and jazz. I had also met a singer/songwriter from California by the name of Bob Payne and we put together a group to play acoustic style original music (it was pretty common for me to be involved in several musical projects at the same time). In the early '80s I connected with another singer/songwriter named Roy Atkinson, and we worked and recorded together as a duo for 4 years or so. At the same time I was invited to form a band with ex-Flash bassist Ray Bennett. He had switched to guitar and was looking for some players to showcase his new original music. We picked up drummer Jef Close and got down to work. Working with Ray was a very challenging experience for me. I was always a guy who collected a lot of different instruments, whether I could play them or not. Ray insisted that I play them all, sometimes more than one at a time. The next thing you know I've got a Mellotron in front of me with a set of Moog bass pedals stuffed underneath it, and a guitar around my neck. And here I though I was the bass player in this band. I went back to the woodshed and the end result was a three piece band that sounded more like four or five. We recorded a demo in our rehearsal space (Ray could do amazing things with a 4 track), and set out to play some gigs and try to attract some record company interest (we couldn't, not enough commercial potential). Even though this band failed to reach escape velocity it was, on the whole, a tremendous experience. About this time I began to realize that the styles of music I enjoyed playing the most had little mass audience appeal, and I needed to adjust my definition of success from one in which the band gets a recording contract, fame, fortune, etc., to one in which success means personal and creative satisfaction. Next I formed a 50s style R&B dance band that stirred up the drunks for the next couple of years or so. Then, in the mid '80s I took a couple of years off to work a real job (3rd shift). Shortly after I got to 1st shift I met a guitarist/singer/songwriter named Hawksbrother Kirouana. He was putting a band together and invited me to audition. Turns out the drummer was a guy I sort of knew from back in the day that I had always wanted to play with, and we clicked right away. After a couple of rehearsals I offered the opinion that the Stick would be perfect for this kind of music (I had sold mine about 3 years prior to that). It couldn't have been a week later I found a used Stick in a local music store, an incredible piece of luck. I snapped it up and began the humbling experience of re-learning how to play the thing. We named this band The SuperWindows and, in one form or another, we spent the next 10 years writing, recording and playing some of the most peculiar and satisfying music of my career. Then the elbow blew out, you know the rest.

That's easy. Guitarist Hawksbrother Kirouana and drummer Gary Sherow, my old bandmates from the SuperWindows. We spent a huge amount of time recording jams and improvised music. We would then dig through these recordings for inspiration when writing new songs. After a while we developed an almost telepathic ability to play improvised music that sounded as if it had been written and rehearsed. A most satisfying experience.

Roy Atkinson put together a band to record an album which was done live at The Chance in Poughkeepsie, NY. The place was sold out so there had to be 450-500 people crammed in there. Then I remember a gig with a band called Men in Debt where the band outnumbered the audience. I guess that happens to everyone. I remember going to see NRBQ at a place in Mt. Tremper NY called the Horseman. There couldn't have been more than 20 people in the room. They did two hour and a half sets and played like they were having the time of their lives...As for most memorable: that had to be the time we played on a Thursday night that also happened to be Beer night as well as St. Patrick's Day. The place was full of bikers. Someone drove a motorcycle onto the dance floor in the middle of the 1st set. At this point the band was becoming concerned that maybe the crowd was becoming just a touch too rowdy, so in an effort to calm things down we decided to stop in the middle of whatever song we were doing and play a nice soothing lullaby. Unfortunately, for some odd reason the lullaby we chose to play (a real nightmare version of Born to be Wild) practically incited a riot. Much alcohol was consumed, hilarity ensued...we barely escaped with our lives

I don't think I can choose just one. I'll have to ponder that a while....