Q: You were born in the upper peninsula of Michigan in a little town, and your family even lived in a haunted house. You wanted to play the snare drum in those days, tell us about that time and how you were introduced to the snare!

A: I was born in Escanaba, Mich, in what is called the “Upper Peninsula.” The family moved to Annapolis, Maryland when I was very young, and stayed in the Bryce House while my Dad went to St John’s University there. The Bryce House dates back to before the Civil War and was one of the stops for the Underground Railroad. I do remember going up the stairs…I was no more than 3…and seeing women in black and white servant’s clothes coming down the steps carrying plates of food and serving utensils. Obviously, they weren’t there, but we did live in the servants quarters. I also remember going to the basement at one point….let’s just say I never went down there again! We were very close to the Naval Academy there and went to see the marching band many times. I became fascinated by the snare drums…not really sure why…so my Dad bought one. I ended up punching the stick thru the drum head when it didn’t sound right and that was the end of that! Probably a good idea; believe me, you don’t want me anywhere near a drum kit!

Q: From Michigan, your family relocated to South Bend, Indiana. When were those Indiana years, and was that when you were introduced to the guitar?

A: We relocated to South Bend from Annapolis, when I was about 7; Dad had gotten a job teaching at Notre Dame. He was teaching biology at the time but his interest was shifting to writing. During his years at NotreDame, that shift continued and he wrote his first book of poetry there, “Cycle for the Mother Cabrini,” a more or less Catholic book of poems. As he continued evolving to American Poet, he also became much more well, jovial. He held these large parties at our house…while we lived in South Bend, the family went from 2 children to 9, so we lived in a very large house! Whole classes of his students, which by now were writing students, not scientists, came carrying guitars and playing folk songs in our basement, along with the usual libations. I got a few lessons from one of those guys and started playing acoustic songs when I was about 15-16. Mostly folk stuff..Pete Seeger, Limelighters, Kingston Trio. About as far from blues as you could get.

Q: Then your family moved out to the San Francisco Bay area in 1963 and you started playing music?

A: We moved to Berkeley in fall of ‘63. I was preparing to enter my senior year at Berkeley High School, concentrating on drama there. I had gotten into a few musicals in South Bend and found it fun and it seemed like I could sing, so I continued that in school. By the time I was 25 I had done about 25 musical shows. But I digress…I started playing in a small club in Berkeley called “The Jabberwocky.” They had Sunday night open mic nites so I took the plunge and got received well enough that I got a regular early Sunday gig. It was one of those banana bread/apple cider places and people there were very kind to me. I played at several other places…the “Cabale” and “Freight and Salvage.” I think Freight and Salvage is still there; the others are gone. I also played a club in San Francisco on Green Street a few times a month. Green Street at that time was a lively music area in the North Beach area, just a bit North of Chinatown, Al Capone’s and Finochio’s, before you get to the Wharf area. Actually, I have no idea if those clubs served alcohol. Probably did and I was underage but nobody mentioned it. At that time, there was a Flamenco craze and several of the clubs had full-on Flamenco nites, with blazing guitars and fiery dancers clicking heels and castanets. So I used to finish my set and go take in a bunch of that before I got on the late bus to go back to Berkeley. Wow!! Remember I was maybe 17 so it was very impressive. I played a lousy version of Malagena as part of my set when I went to Green Street. Later, in the early 70’s, we would go to see Elvin Bishop in the clubs there. 3 bucks at the door and boogie all night. Don’t know if any of those clubs are still active, but The Blues Saloon was there then and still is.

Just before we moved to Wyoming in ‘74, I was working at Sweetwater in Mill Valley. The club is still there, I believe. I was a doorman, mostly, and barback, whatever they needed. I had tended bar at a steakhouse in San Francisco, the Rusty Scupper; played there too, actually, and knew the business so sometimes I’d get behind the bar, too. At that time, there were 2 clubs, one in Sausalito called The Trident and one in Mill Valley, Sweetwater, that rock stars would frequent. They would go to the Trident to party and be seen and Sweetwater when they wanted to just be. So I saw a lot of folks while I worked there. I served coffee to Dylan there, drinks to Bloomfield, Dan Hicks, etc. But they wanted to be left alone, so I did. One night I was working the door; Luther Tucker came by…he was playing with John Lee Hooker and lived up in San Rafael. I had met him at a show. Just after he left to go play a gig, Michael Bloomfeild knocked on the door and brought a guitar in! I thought well, this is gonna be a night! Soon, Bloomfield, Mark Naftalin, Harvey Brooks and some players I didn’t know, including a young lady named “Kentucky” who blew the crap out of a sax, and the singer from Quicksilver Messenger Service, Dino Valenti, were laying it down on the stage. I had no idea they were coming and had to lock the door we got so full. People were putting 20’s on the window to try to get in. Pretty wild.

Q: Didn’t you become an actor, and you even auditioned for the wonderful Academy of music and dramatic art?

A: Ah the plot thickens! Yep, I did a lot of musical comedy before I was 25 both in College and repertory and summer stock theaters and decided I wanted to become classically trained so I would know a bit more about what I was doing. So I auditioned for The London Academy Of Music and Dramatic Arts’ foreign student program. It was a one year crash course in Shakespeare, Moliere and classical theater and open to 12 students world wide. I auditioned in LA and got one of the spots, much to my surprise. So I studied Shakespeare in London for a year and they taught me a very important lesson: I did not want to be an actor! The question was asked of me,” What did I do when I wanted to really touch base with myself?” I answered “play my guitar.” There was my answer. I came back to the States, actually left LAMDA early, did one more role, “Alceste” in Moliere’s “the MIsanthrope,” I memorized 6 thousand lines…or something like that…did the show, got good reviews and left. Haven’t been onstage as an actor since. That was 1970

Q; You ended up in Laramie Wyoming, after a stay in NYC. What were those years like?

A: Ok, so…the NYC City days were before I went to London and after I came back; Before London, I was working repertory theaters in upstate NY and then Carmel CA, I moved around a lot; airfare was cheap. I auditioned for LAMDA in LA. When I came back to the states, I was in NY for a month or two before coming back to the Bay Area in late ‘70. I met my first wife, the mother of my 2 sons, there. We married and I continued working as a bartender at the Rusty Scupper and playing in clubs. I was playing a club on Clement Street in SF when a friend whom I had graduated High School with walked thru the door. Hadn’t seen him in 7 years…or even heard from him. He asked me if I wanted to come help him open The Laramie Banjo Shop in Laramie Wyoming. No introduction, no fan fare, just that. Boom! I talked with Sharon…we had just had our first son in July, this was September. Neither of us had much going on, my job as an apartment complex mgr was ending in November…so, we decided to take the plunge and move. November, 1974. It was one of the best decisions we ever made. “Banjo” conjures up bluegrass, and I did play in a bluegrass band for a bit but it wasn’t my style. So I continued to work in the Shop as it expanded and eventually we started an “Outlaw Country” band, called “Mad Dog Rodeo.” I have often said that people didn’t come to see us play so much as they did to watch us drink! We were very popular, played a lot, rodeos, dances, parties. Fun Times.
During this time I started studying with a guitar player, Ron McClure, who was a grad of Berkeley SChool of Music. I learned almost everything I know about music and how the guitar works from him. Major scales, chord construction, composition, analysis…all from his teachings over a period of 3 maybe 4 years. We also did concerts at the University of Wyoming…recitals, I think they were called, that featured the works of Miles Davis, both the cool jazz years and the Jazz/Rock fusion years of “Agartha” and “Jack Johnson.” It was wildly experimental and I don’t think the music dept at the UW was particularly amused, being very classically oriented. They didn’t consider the guitar a legitimate instrument. More Harpsicord and violins…so I think we probably turned them on their ear. I played in one of the UW Big Band Jazz bands too. Laramie at that time was an exciting musical City, as weird as it sounds. I still have very close friends there.

Q: Didn’t you break into radio during those Wyoming days?

A: Yes, I got into radio in Laramie. The first Christmas I was there, I did a series of radio ads for the Banjo Shop and since I knew how to talk…former actor, remember…the Program Director there offered me an on air job. Small market radio at that time was a great opportunity if you wanted to get into radio. Not so much anymore. That eventually led to me becoming the Program Director of a new FM station doing what was called AOR radio…Album Oriented Rock…and as I was pretty active in the trade magazines, the station got some attention from Record reps trying to get their new music on the air. That station eventually went to an Automated format and I moved up to KAWY in Casper…which also went automated in 1980. I was out of a job. By now, 2 kids and radio experience, which with 2 bucks will get you a bus ride. I was also playing a lot, going back and forth from Casper to Laramie for gigs. Time to move on.

Q: Then it was off to Austin, where you were again on the air as a DJ. During your Austin time, you played with some of the legendary players in that era, and at Antone’s. I believe you even auditioned for the Marcia Ball band! What was the Austin music scene like during those days, and is that when you first met Hudson Harkins & John McVey?

A: So, we moved to Austin in 1980…I turned down a job offer as a radio guy in Detroit because I was interested in the Austin Music Scene. Sharon, my wife, was a Texas native and her family had (actually, still has; my son lives in that house now) a home in San Marcos and we lived with them while we looked for a place in Austin. I contacted an old friend from Wyoming, Bruce Jones, who had moved to Austin several years before and was playing bass with Omar and the Howlers, for some sort of advice. He took me to see Stevie in a bar in East Austin, before the Double Trouble days. I seriously thought…well, I guess I better head back to Wyoming! It was amazing. I eventually got a job working at KLBJ, which at that time was a pretty free form rock station, basically unformatted but the Music Director there got credited with breaking The Police so it was pretty high visibility in the industry. However, the management was unhappy with the fact that the ratings were so poor they couldn’t sell advertising. Radio airtime is the only product radio has to sell, so if very few people are listening, it’s hard to sell it to an advertiser. I was on the staff when the Mgmt fired this PD and MD and hired a long time radio man, Chuck Dunaway (Chuck took Alan Freed’s place in NYC when Freed was blacklisted. There’s a Kevin Bacon movie about it.) who heard me on the air and hired me as his MD to assist in reformatting the station. It wasn’t easy; lots of hate mail, lots of phone calls, as we took about 10K records out of the library altogether and formatted the rest; not prohibitively, just basically. If a cut off an album got played, it couldn’t be played again for 3 days so you didn’t continue to hear the same hot cut on every shift. We also chose 2-3 cuts from an album that could be played; the rest were off limits. We weren’t popular people but when the first book came back and listenership went from under 2.0 to over 9.0 it felt pretty good! I never got used to having to fire people, but it was necessary at times. Not a good feeling.

I left KLBJ in probably ‘85 to work in a recording studio for a few months, then worked for Free Flow Productions as a media rep for the releases of Joe Ely, Eliza Gilkyson and Mark Hallman. I was playing clubs a lot during this time but didn’t really get going until I took a job as a Dj at Z102, a rival to KLBJ. I eventually lost that job for reasons I won’t go into here, but during that time I not only had the only commercial radio slot to feature local musicians but had a live broadcast every Sat nite from Antones. That went on for 3 years and during that time I met a lotta folks…John McVey and the Stumble played there quite a bit. John was at that time kickin ass and takin names; still is, only here in St Louis. He let me olay with him on 6th street many times. Not sure why actually but I am glad he did. I played a cut from The Hoo Doo Cats, my first introduction to Hudson Harkins, from a cassette on the Local show, played with Alan Haynes, mostly at jam sessions, Larry Lange, in my band, Logan and the Lix, Butch Hancock, David Halley and Jimmie Gilmore at one point or another. When I lost that radio job, I free lanced for a bit and then met Hudson Harkins at an open mic he was hosting…I was the DJ doing a live remote broadcast from Thundercloud Subs.

Q: You eventually joined Hudson and the Hoo Doo Cats, is that right?

A: Yep. I don’t think Hud wanted to hire me until he had to but I have always been glad he did. My second marriage was falling apart and life was not great, for several reasons. Having a job as a guitar player was a dream for me. Life falling apart, kids grown, nothing to hold me in Austin. We hit the road. A lot. Mostly coming up through St Louis and further North to Wisconsin and Minneapolis/St Paul, we played I think 300 dates on the road the first year and that remained pretty much the same for a few years, dotted by trips to the US Virgin Islands, for several years until we moved to St Louis. It was an absolute blast and gave me some validation as a player. Hudson will always have my gratitude for that validation. I consider him a brother.

Q: Your path then led you west, to LA! Tell us about those times!

A: Actually, I was in LA only for a brief time with Joe Ely on a tour in support of his album “Hi Res.” I think it’s one of Joe’s best but it was not well received. His back up band was Passenger, whose make up included Roscoe Beck, who now plays with Robin Ford…and was at that time, come to think of it…and Mitch Watkins on guitar, who played many years with Leonard Cohen. We played the “Paladin” there; Joe was the early act and, as I always did, I went out to hang in the bar and talk to employees before a show, to get a sense of what they were expecting. Most were irritated that they had to wait for “this guy” to be done before they could hear the later act, some hot LA act whose name I can’t recall. Joe had these jaded kids out on the floor dancing with him by the time his show ended. Tremendous energy and stage moxie.

Q: You now call St. Louis home! How did you end up here?

A: When Austin became a destination for several IT companies…Apple, IBM, among others, the town that we knew as a music mecca of about 300K became inundated with families moving in to take the jobs that were being created, or they were moving because their company relocated them and prices went thru the roof. This was in the early 90’s. At one time 300 families a week were moving to the area and a 3 br 2 ba house that had been about 400/mo all the way thru the 80’s all of a sudden was 1200/mo. Houses were being built and sold to these families happy to get them at 150K when they had been used to 300K on either coast. That migration changed the make up of Austin in about 3 years. The people who had put Austin on the map…artists, musicians…could no longer afford to live there. So, Hud and I talked and decide to move to St Louis…we were already established here after several years of touring thru. That was in ‘95 and the first month we were here we played, like, 30 gigs. Personally, I will never forget how welcoming the St Louis scene was to a relatively new band moving in. Instead of making it difficult and seeing us as competition, we were welcomed and supported. We thought maybe we’d be here 5 years…Little did we know! I have been lucky enough to play music in San Francisco in the 60’s, Laramie in the 70’s, Austin in the 80’s. St louis now for 30 years, since the mid 90’s. This St Louis music scene is every bit as good and varied as both of those and I am mighty happy to be here.

Q: How can we find where you’re playing around town?

A: Really, the best place to go to find my gigs…or most of us on the local scene…is the Music Calendar on STLBlues.net.
I post my gigs with my band, Logan and the Lix, on my Facebook page and share notifications for the Brother Jefferson Band there also but both are on the STLBlues.net calendar!