Between my junior and senior year in high school, I had bought a Harley 45 three-wheel motortrike. I spent the better part of the summer tearing it apart and building it back up as a chopper. It was the coolest thing. It had Keystone mags and ‘60’ tires on the back with an ice cooler built into a wooden box behind an oak office chair with arms, a suicide clutch with a bayonet as the shifter, a completely rebuilt engine, chrome, ten inches in the forks, custom handlebars and a metallic blue paint job. I had tore it down and rebuilt the whole trike by myself that summer. My senior year, I showed up at school driving it and everyone went crazy. It was so cool to pull up, shift into reverse and back in to a parking spot. I had started jamming some with various friends and had a lot of friends that were encouraging me to pursue music, but at that time I just wasn't sure what I wanted to do. But that soon changed.

I run into people I went to school with and even now, this many years later, that is the most distinctive thing they remember about me was my Harley. I tell this story because I sold it the next year and used the money to buy my first of many sound systems that I owned over the years. It was an Altec-Lansing PA with a six channel powered mixer with reverb and two powered cabinets -- each with a fifteen inch Altec speaker, a 12x4 inch horn and a power amp. I used this system for about four years and then I had my friend Andrew Suggs, build new component cabinets for the speakers and horns and I used them another six or seven years.

I graduated from Treadwell High School in May of 1970. By August 1st, I was all set to start college to study electronics at some school up in Kentucky -- the name of which has long been lost in the obscurity of my memory. A friend of mine that I had known throughout high school was a fellow named Tom Fosko. About two weeks before I was to leave for college, Tom called one day and asked me over to check out his band. It turned out that they were looking for a singer and Tom knew I could sing -- he just didn't bother to tell me that's why he had invited me over. Anyway to make a long story short, the experience was such an awakening to me, I actually had a vision that showed me my life's path was in music. I left there knowing exactly where my future was and what I was to do. The result was, I went home and told my parents, I was not going to college, that I was going to stay in Memphis and pursue music as a career. Needless to say, my dad wasn't to happy. However, my mother was more understanding and even encouraged me. My dad later came around, though I think he accepted my decision, I don't believe that he every really understood or liked the choice I had made. Note: I also find it interesting that years later, I would find my way back to electronics in the computer business. And then later after that, back to music.

That band was a pretty limited experience that lasted only a month or two. But, it served it's purpose to redirect my life's path to music. Almost as soon as that experience was coming to a close, another musician I knew named Ray Creasy called out of the blue. Ray and I had know each other since the seventh grade and would wind up playing together throughout the years in several bands and recording projects. We also have written around twenty tunes together since 1970.

Anyway, Ray was in need of a drummer to round out a band he was forming and called to ask if I knew of a drummer that might be available. Since the other band had all but disintegrated, Tom and I had discussed reforming the band with some new players but I saw little hope in it since we had neither a rehearsal hall nor a sound system at this point in time. (Note: The Altec system mentioned above was acquired later toward the end of this new band with Ray.) When Ray called, I saw it as an opportunity for Tom to get with another group pretty quickly and encouraged him to go audition. He agreed to go and he asked me to go along since I knew Ray. When we got to the place they were rehearsing, the band was already setup and Tom soon completed his. I met the fellow who was going to be the bass player. His name was John Page. John was the first guitarist I had ever met that played left handed by taking a right handed guitar and flipping it over to the left and turning it upside down to play. I later found out that John was a keyboard wizard, but happened to be playing bass in this group. Several years later, John focused his talents to playing Jazz Piano and the last I heard, he was in New York City working the circuit there. Ray was the guitarist, and another fellow named Gene Dries was the lead singer. They had planned to have a four piece group.

Gene was going to be about an hour late getting there. So, Tom suggested that I sing. I knew a number of the songs they were playing, so I did. The result of that, was that Ray and John liked what I did so well they wanted to add me as a second lead singer. I -- along with Tom -- joined the band that day to form a five piece group. Not to long after, we decided the name of the group would be Taxi. So, Tom, Ray, John, Gene and I, played together in a rock and roll band named TAXI during 1970-71 that lasted for close to a year. We played clubs, high schools and colleges in and around Memphis. It was a blast. It's interesting to note that everyone that was in that group has remained associated with music in some way and on some professional level. I remain in touch with both Ray and Tom on a regular basis. I haven't spoke with Gene or John in probably twenty years but hear news through the grapevine on occasion. One other note: Both Ray and Tom show up in a number of places on my site as well as several other long time musician friends I have worked with through the years that you will meet and hear about throughout the site.

After Taxi folded, I played with several other club gig bands on into mid summer of ‘72. But, none of them specifically come to mind by name nor did anything of distinction, so I assume that they were not worth mentioning here anyway. It's hard to admit, and I can't help but laugh as I sit here writing this. The fact is, in thirty four years of music being a part of my life, I have been in more bands than most of the musicians I know and play with are old in years of age. Keep in mind I have only worked with four groups since 1982 and in two of those, I was just the guitar or bass player. There were a couple of progressive rock groups that I don't recall by name that played clubs and college frats. At my insistence, we would on occasion work on writing and performing original tunes. The latter of the two bands being the only group that I ever was fired from and was fired because I wanted to only write and perform original tunes and everyone else in the group wanted to do cover tunes and play bars. I just saw that as such a waste of time and energy, I wanted to be writing and recording. Up to this point, I had only been singing in the groups I worked in. My writing was restricted to lyrics and melodies with other musicians supplying cord structures. I had acquired an acoustic guitar on loan from my friend and mentor Marie Roberson so I was starting to spend more time learning to play acoustic guitar and had little interest in electric guitar or progressive rock.

By the end of the summer of ‘72, Ray Creasy and I had started writing and working together more and more. We had a method of writing together that seemed to click well for us. Usually one of us would come up with the main idea and the other would pitch in the right element to help finish the tune - sometimes just a cord or two, sometimes a word, a line or a verse or a change in the melody. Side-bar Note: On the tunes we have written together over the years, Ray mostly does the tunes that he provided the core idea and I mostly do the tunes where I provided the core idea. We had agreed in the beginning that no matter who brought in the idea, we would share writing credits fifty-fifty.

Within four to five weeks, we had written and recorded demo tracks on probably ten, maybe twelve songs on a two track that again my friend and mentor Marie Roberson had given me (by now, I had returned her acoustic guitar and purchased me a new Alvarez acoustic guitar. I kept it about three months, then sold it and purchased a Martin D35 acoustic guitar.) We took the demo to Sam Phillips Studios. Side-bar Note: Sam Phillips was the legendary owner of Sun Records and Studio that recorded Elvis, B. B. King, Rufus Thomas, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and to many others to name here.

They liked the demo well enough that we were assigned to a producer who wound up being Sam's nephew, Judd Phillips. Within a day or two, he had booked sessions for us in one of Sam's studios to start recording the project. As we worked, Sam would often drop in to the control room to hear our progress -- we usually would start working at night about seven to eight PM and would work 'till two and three in the mornings some sessions. Sam never said much to us, but he gave the impression that he liked what he was hearing. At some point midway through the project -- we were never quite sure as to what actually happened -- the producer, Judd, decided to move us from Phillips Studio over to another studio located at Chelsea and Third next to Select-O-Hits record distributors (there in Memphis.) After working on the project for several more weeks, it became apparent that he was going through a lot of personal changes creating a lot of tension and stress that was also being transmitted to us. This all resulted in the whole project coming apart and it soon folded. He just seemed to move off to parts unknown after that. Like most acts that get stuck in the middle of that type 0f situation, we were left wondering what the heck had just happened and we never got another shot with Sam Phillips. Note: That is a fairly common situation in the record industry. When an act is being brought along by an A&R guy or a producer and that person gets canned or have a falling out with the label / production company or sometimesthey just leave for other opportunities or reasons, the act goes out the door as well.

Side-bar Note: Located at the same intersection just around the corner from the second studio we were working in, was American Studios, which at the time was ran by Chips Moman. American Studios had a pretty awesome history in it's earlier days. Elvis recorded “Suspicious Minds” and “In The Ghetto” there in sixty-nine and Mac Davis & Dan Penn were house writers and were recording there during that period as well. In the latter part of the seventies long after Chips Moman had left, a super nice guy named Bill Glover owned it. I did my short stint at American during this period. But by this time, the studio had pretty much became just another local studio with outdated equipment and old ideas and I was just a young musician / singer / songwriter looking for any opportunity to get in the studio. From some of the conversations that Bill and I had during that time, my perception was that Bill didn't think of himself as any kind of a music innovator or hot shot music producer, he just believed that American had made some serious contributions to the history of Memphis Music and it needed to be kept open and given the due respect for those contributions. I agreed then and still do now. However, Bill got in bad health and died a year or two later and American was then sold, dismantled, auctioned off and the building tore down. History note: As Disco was getting hot in the early to mid seventies, the recording industry in Memphis took a serious down turn. It all came to almost a screeching halt and there was a huge drain on the Memphis scene when Stax Records folded. The Memphis Music Industry/Scene in general and a lot of the Memphis Studios like American and Stax, were the training grounds for and gave a start to a lot of the record execs, producers and session players that showed up in Nashville in the middle to late seventies and eighties.

I knocked around Memphis on into the summer. I often went through Jackson Tennessee going to see Family nearby. On one of these trips, I ran into Ray Creasy one weekend and he was playing an outdoor concert at a local college. He invited me to come out and sit in and sing a few tunes and I accepted -- it was a lot of fun and the crowd really got into what was going on at the show. I was really taken by the warm reception. Soon after I decided nothing was happening in Memphis, so I moved 80 miles north to Jackson, Tennessee. Jackson was between Memphis and Nashville. I knew other people in the area and the live music scene was doing pretty good, so I headed there. I met Dennis Fischer, who owned a local music gear and record store named Soundz Of Music. He was also a pretty solid acoustic musician. He and I soon formed an acoustic duo and started playing some of the local gigs. I had also moved in a band house that was old, drafty and got real cold real fast as winter came on. The winter of '73 had nights where the temp was in the single digits and we had little fire and even less money. It was taking just about every thing we all made to pay for rent, high utilities, band equipment, gas and a little food. During this four month period, most of us were getting by on a bowl of beans a day and on a good day we could afford a loaf of bread. Of coarse, it didn't seem such a big deal to us at the time. We were all musicians and at least we were getting by and doing what we all loved. Two of the guys that lived there at the house and played together in a band, were the Beddle brothers. Larry played guitar and Jerry played bass. Both guys were awesome musicians. Last I heard, they were still playing professionally. During the Taxi days, I had bought an Altec-Lansing Sound System. When I wasn't using the system, Larry and Jerry were using it with their band.

Getting on close to Christmas I called an old girlfriend in Tampa Florida to see how she was doing. She was staying with her brother Wes (also another old/lifetime friend of mine) in a nice three story victoria house near Tampa Bay. She was telling me about how warm it was with the temperatures in the seventies and eighties. At some point while we were talking, she asked me to come down for Christmas. Needless to say, she didn't have to ask twice. The next day, I packed all my gear in my old sixty-six Chevy pickup and headed back to Memphis. I stopped in and spent the night with my folks, stored some stuff I didn't need and left the next morning for Florida with my Martin D35 acoustic guitar, clothes and my sound system.