My Bio-autography

I was born in Vancouver, Canada, back when you could hear Artie Shaw and the Dorsey Brothers and Glen Miller on the radio... AM radio! I remember the first time I heard Jimmie Rogers, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Rusty Draper, Lonny Donegan, Julie London, The Big Bopper, Jackie Wilson, Ricky Nelson, Sam Cooke, Los Indios Tabajaras, Carlos Santana, Tony Bennett, Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery, Miles Davis, Joe Pass, Bill Evans and Mickey Newberry, Taj Mahal, Sonny & Brownie, Roger McGuin.

My Influences? All of the above. And Life, Love, Joy, Pain. Moving. My sons. Single parenting for 16 years - He did such a good job of raising me! Everyone who ever loved me, some just for a moment - some only until they got to know me. Everyone who couldn't love me - especially the ones who let me know. Burning bridges. The road - more than anything, the road. 100 addresses in 40 years - no lie!

Solo bar gigs in Vancouver, North & West Van, Horseshoe Bay, Squamish, Whistler, Sechelt, Roberts Creek, Powell River, Lund, Courtenay, Comox, Campbell River, Nanaimo, Port Alberni, Duncan, Victoria, Sooke, Tsawwassen, Ladner, Point Roberts, White Rock, Cloverdale, Whalley, Newton, Surrey, New Westmister, Port Moody, Coquitlam, Haney, Pitt Meadows, Aldergrove, Langley, Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Chilliwack Lake, Harrison, Hope, Spuzzum, Yale, Lytton, Lilloet, Cache Creek, Ashcroft, Clinton, 70 Mile House, 100 Mile House, Williams Lake, Quesnel, Bella Coola, Rupert, Smithers, Burns Lake, Prince George, Dawson Creek, Fort Nelson, Yellowknife, the Raskin Triangle, Edmonton, Calgary, Banff, Windermere, Invermere, Fairmont, Radium, Golden, Revelstoke, Kimberley, Cranbrook, Creston, Salmo, Rossland, Trail, Castlegar, Nelson, Slocan, Kaslo, Silverton, New Denver, Nakusp, Lumby, Vernon, Enderby, Salmon Arm, Sicamous, Chase, Monte Creek, Kamloops, Blue River, Savona, Logan Lake, Merritt, Princeton, Keremeos, Osoyoos, Oliver, Penticton, Naramata, Summerland, Peachland, Kelowna, Rutland, Midway, Greenwood, Grand Forks. Duo and band gigs in a lot of those places plus Spokane, Couer d'Elaine, Boise, Livingston, Kalispel, Whitefish, Concrete, Fort Collins, Red River, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Fort Stockton, Odessa and a whole lot more.

The Rocky Mountains, Rankin Inlet, The Arctic Circle, Corpus Christi and the Gulf of Mexico. Picking, writing, wandering and wondering. Through Alberta, B.C., Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Utah, South Dakota, Wyoming, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Tennessee, Kentucky, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida.

Buffalo, Green Bay, Detroit and Chicago in the great snow of '72. 1100 miles in 22 hours from Port Alberni to Fort Nelson B.C. alone in the middle of the winter of '76 - set up and play 6 hours a night for 3 weeks. Who says Hell doesn't freeze? 50+ below zero outside - 4 walls and one TV channel, off the air at 11:00 PM. No love in that town at that time.

The Riverboat, The Retinal Circus, Rohan's Rock Pile, The Waterfront Coral, The Vancouver East Cultural Center, The Old Roller Rink, The Commodore, The Grouse Nest, The Cement City Cowboys and hangin' with Hoyt Axton. Hosting "Country Road" and getting to interview Townes Van Zandt, Crowell, Clark, Ed Bruce, Doc Watson and so many more.

The Pacific Ocean. Even when I'm far away in miles and years, its sounds, smells, moods, creatures, contrasts, textures, power and mystery are with me; its rhythms still move in me. Paradoxically, some fundamental part of me is always more than a little at sea when I'm away.

'80s: Bud's Good Eats and the other half of NightHawk. Mulvaney. Point Roberts. Fat Willie's Cafe and the Cannery. Jeff George (RIP) and Tom Parriott (RIP). Bob Carpenter and Gypsy Boy and BJ Hall and the Sunshine Coast. The pig roast 20 miles north of Grand Forks, with next day complaints from townies that our music was too loud!

My first taste of Texas - another run - two of us in this particular shard of memory; dazed and exhausted, falling in love, 58 non-stop no sleep hours from Port Townsend all the crazy way to Dallas. Cresting a hill on Route 66 and dropping softly east into the indescribable beauty of a Tucumcari Sunrise. What if we'd never turned south?

Monahans. Lubbock. Pinky's. Coldwater Country opening for Joe Ely and George Thorogood and pickin' with GT at the old Stubbs Bar-B-Q 'til the sun came up, back before Mister Stubbs moved to Austin. Sunday afternoons sitting in with Henry Lester and the Original Drugstore Cowboys.

'84: Wyoming and the Tetons, and a fireplace in the old ranch house outside Big Horn; just me and Lefty - half Cocker/half Springer and the absolute hands-down best dog that ever lived on this planet. I named him for Lefty Frizzell. Fourth of July gig with my pal Pesha at the King Ranch near Sheridan, when the cowboys set the roof on fire with bottle rockets.

'88: Ancient riders comin' hard up the canyon between Raton and Taos as we held each other and the kids at 9000 feet in the bright light of a September afternoon and heard the leather creak and the spurs jingle, felt the earth shake and smelled the horses. And knew that time and space had somehow collapsed on themselves, and that our escape from any semblance of "normal" was now irrevocably complete in this beautiful and eerie place. Hindsight being 20/20, maybe we should have stayed in Boulder!

The sublime Michael Hearne & New Mexico Rain. Dave Rann (RIP). Selo Black Crow sharing Alpines in the sweat lodge during my naming ceremony, because a dog had lifted his leg over the sacred pipe. Pickin' with Tres Cajones; Steve Gavula preachin' the gospel of CF Martin on the Taos ski hills 'til they had to two step, just to save their souls.

Austin and Kerrville. Big Bill Moss. Rex Foster. John Ims and 'West Texas Wind'. Chuck Pyle and 'The Other Side of the Hill'. Barton Springs and Jerry Jeff and Charlie Dunn. Swimming in the Pedernales with Steve Fromholz on the car stereo singing 'I'd Have To Be Crazy'.

San Diego and Jose Lobo and the Twisted Whiskers, and feeling the pressure to start acting like a grown up. Scary!

Motorcycles, and the wind in my face. My natural inclination to be alone in my reality was always best served on two wheels, just a loose pebble or a couple of revs away from leaving. The people who knew me best said I didn't need a motorcycle for that.

And through it all, the songs and the music. Johnny Mercer, Bob Wills, Hoagy Charmichael, Gene Vincent, Nancy Wilson, Etta James, Sam Cook. Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee, Johnny and the magic of Sun Records in the 50s. Motown in the 60s. Muscle Shoals in the 70s.

The story tellers: Dylan. Paxton. Rush, Holly. Kristofferson. Tyson (Is there a better record than Cowboyography? Yeah, but not many!). Fred Neil, Neil Young, Danny O'Keefe, Joni Mitchell, John Prine, Steve Goodman, Jesse Winchester, Hoyt Axton, Tom T. Hall, Mel Tillis, Bobby Bare, Roger Miller, Harlan Howard, Carly Simon, Carol King, Sweet Baby James, Jackson Brown, Warren Zevon.

Otis Redding, Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn. CREAM - Jack & Ginger & Eric - LIVE and UNBELIEVABLE! Jimi Hendrix live. Glen Campbell opening for Janis Joplin - me backstage sharing a jug of Comfort with her while she awaited her turn on stage. Ike &Tina Turner, Jose Feliciano, Smokey & the Miracles, Commander Cody, Ray Charles and James Brown and Smokey Robinson - all LIVE and UNBELIEVABLE!

Same for Peggy Lee, Brooke Benton, Solomon Burke and Lefty and Waylon and Merle in small BYOB clubs like the Lamplighter in Burnaby.

Lynyrd Skynyrd, Little Feat, The Band, Boz Scaggs, Elvin Bishop, B.B. and Albert and Freddie King. Rosanne Cash, Kathy Mattea, Juice Newton and Karen Brooks (her son is a good friend all these years later). Billy Joe Shaver. Guy Clark. Rodney Crowell. Hank Cochrane. Butch Hancock. Joe Ely. Terry Allen. Lyle Lovett. Willie Nelson. Con Hunley. Sanger D. Shafer. Dean Dillon. Jimmy Buffet. Stephen Bishop. Dana Cooper. Shake Russell. Tom Russell. Bobby Braddock. John Hartford. Murray McLauchlan. Bruce Cockburn. Gene McLellan. David Whiffen. Willie P. Bennett. Sheri Ulrich. Papa Bear. Valdy. Cameron Molloy. Tim Williams.

The deep writers I know and admire today: Mike Reid, Alan Shamblin, Beth Nielson Chapman, Rivers Rutherford, Laurie McClain, Big Al Anderson, Barry Dean, Chuck Cannon, Hugh Prestwood, Mark Steven Jones, my supremely gifted pal Ray Sisk and the sublime Angela Kasset.

Pretty much anybody who ever sat at a piano or picked up an instrument or wrote a story or sang a song that touched me in a new way, or brought feeling to some part of me that I didn't know existed. Every sacred soul whose path has ever crossed mine. Their songs and stories have formed my life, and their lives continue to inform my songs and stories, and to fill me with enormous gratitude.

In the "Photograph" pages, you'll find a lot of uncaptioned shots. Some of the folks in those shots are not with us anymore; my Mom and Dad, my brother Tom, my friends Jeff George, Tom Parriot and Dave Rann, and my sons' Mom Christie and their great grandmother Eleanor. This site is especially dedicated to each of them.

I hope you enjoy my songs. Come back often. And sign the guest book if you feel like it.

Thanks for stopping by! Be well.