I don’t have a publicist or staff writer so I am not going to write this like I do. I have tried that before and it just sounds weird. I am a real person, just like you, this what I’ve come up with to explain it. My slide guitar playing is inspired by the recordings of Son House, Fred McDowell, Robert Johnson, Charley Patton and Bukka White (to name a few) and my singing is inspired by Viola Marigna, my African-American nanny, my parents housekeeper and the woman I consider to be my godmother. These elements combine to defy the banal but all too prevalent prejudice that blues music cannot or should not be played by a guy like me: a young, lanky, white man from Colorado. I am not an imitator, that is not my aspiration; these are the people who have moved me to have hope in my life. I aspire only to move others as these tremendous people have moved me.

I tend to surprise people. That has been my experience anyhow. I show up to play and I am younger than I look in my photos and before you know it with audience in tow, two good hours of singing and playing have whirled by. So I guess the surprise that I am writing about is not the type of surprise elicited from gulping turpentine instead of cool water or waking up to find your sweet baby gone, as the old folks say. But rather, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, the wonder found in boarding a bus that won’t bar no race, that won’t laugh at your looks, your voice or your face and by any number of bets in the book will be rolling long after the bubble gum craze.

Starting out I played bars a lot; in ski towns, in trendy places where manufacturing used to thrive and places where live music was a distraction from the 70 inch plasma screens. My friend Richard Johnston in Memphis taught me how to play drums with my feet. So to counter the noise in the bars I started playing electric guitars and banging drums with my feet. I love being loud but what I really want is to play for people whose destination is music. In the Netherlands I played without sound equipment for an audience of 30 in a museum that had a room designed for chamber music. The intimacy and sound were majestic. On festival stages this summer I have played for over 10,000 people and the experience was majestic as well. I found myself being part of a spell that was created by the space and those living in it. Music was the essential ingredient because like magic it alters people’s perceptions. A shift was created that allowed everyone involved to view the world differently if only for a moment.

The summer of ‘05 I booked and played 70 shows. I was at a point where I could book myself seven nights a week and decided to do five. It was this past summer that I had the experience in the Netherlands and now instead of looking for a quantity shows I am looking for those that are destinations for music lovers. September and October of ’05 were filled with these type of shows. I played the Telluride Blues and Brews and Arkansas Heritage (formerly the King Biscuit) Festivals; I opened for Kelly Joe Phelps at the premier folk music organization in Denver, Swallow Hill and opened for BB King with my band the Pea Vine Line at the sold-out 2000 seat Pikes Peak Center. I performed with Henry Butler and Corey Harris’s drummer Johnny Gilmore with Corey listening on. Alvin Youngblood Hart attended one of my shows, said I was sounding good.