The first time I had a guitar around my neck, I was about 4 or 5 years old, trying to do Elvis. I grew up with my dad and his brothers and relatives and friends getting together on the weekends to play. My dads whole family used to play on the Grand Ol' Opry back when they did radio shows. My grandpaw Henry Clay Collier was supposed to be the best banjo player around. My aunt Lessie played mandolin, fiddle and piano and my dad and his brother Byron(uncle Jack) played guitar. I think my uncle Burtis played fiddle and piano. It was always a lot of fun.
I was in garage bands in the early-mid sixties, playing surf music with some of my buds I went to school with. After the Beatles came out, things started changing and we started doing other stuff, Kinks, Trogs, Beatles, Byrds, Zombies, Beach Boys, etc. The guys in the band didn't like me to sing, because they thought I had a weird voice. During high school, I was a huge Doors fan and realized that I could immitate Jim Morrison. Thats when I got in a band with a girl named Linda Easly who had one of Ray Manzerik's Vox Continental organs and could play all his riffs exactly. I thought we were pretty hot. She actually knew a lot of cool groups like the Stones, Doors and Sky Saxon & The Seeds. We used to go hang out at Skys house up near Malibu and listen to them rehearse in his garage. Those were the days. During the summer of 68' right before my senior year in high school, I was up at Bass Lake, Ca., with my then girlfriend and her family and a bunch of our friends, and had gotten some purple haze from Ozzly. Wow!!! " Walking back from our friends, Johnny & Cheri Gales cabin, I heard "The Buffalo Spingfield" come drifting though the woods. It was an amazing sunset, and that was "it". I was hooked. I had never heard music like that. Anyway, that started me on my journey on my own writing, singing and playing style.
I used to drag my guitar around everywhere I went and would play for whoever would listen. During my second year in college, I was at a party doing a Neil Young song "Helpless" and everyone thought is sounded pretty cool. So I started feeling more comfortable with my voice. At that point it didn't seem to matter as much if you had a weird voice. Dylan had started changing that notion. Somewhere around 1973, I was at a party of a girlfriend of a musician friend of mine, Jim Lewis, who I had met while jamming at the Sawdust Festival in Laguna Canyon where I had been living. While playing on the piano, this guy came up and said he liked what I was doing. His name was Tony Bennidict aka Anton Noel. He had been an animator for Hanna Barbera and had done this animated movie that they show every Christmas season called "Santa & the Three Bears". He had sold the rights for the movie and was now making an animated movie called "Guitar Picks & Roach Clips" and asked me if I would do a couple of songs for it. It had a lot cool musicians like my friend James Lewis, Donovan, Bobby Jameson, Crazy Horse, Red Rhodes, Ansley Dunbar, etc. So yes, I was on board. Some very good friends of mine, and also some of the best musicians I know, Murray and Jeanne Cullan and some other musician friends helped me record, "Falling Down", and "The Hawk", which are both currently up on this site if you want a listen. James Lewis was friends with the band Batforf & Rodney, and we used to go hear them do shows. They reminded me of "The Buffalo Springfield" in a way. Batdorf & Rodney were doing a show at Loyola high school on Friday the 13th, and that is where I met my first wife Bernie, one of the most incredible humans I have ever known. Bernie passed away from complications from leukemia in 1984. We have two son's, Jesse & Cody. I have since remarried in 1993 to my current and beautiful wife, Michele, who has two older daughters Andrea & Amy. We have a son together, Christian, who is now 12 and have three grand kids Braden almost 15 and Delila 2 1/2 years old from Andrea. Amy just had her first son, Alasdair, in November. Anyway,. we were rehearsing for a concert to promote the movie at San Diego State University and John & Melanie Batdorf showed up to listen. Batdorf & Rodney were in the process of breaking up, and I guess John liked my singing and writing. Anyway, he contacted me through our friend James Lewis and said he had a record deal with Arista records and was interested in me joining up with himself and the keyboard player, Brent Mydland from Batdorf & Rodney. I went up to his house in Kagel Canyon to see how we would sound together. It was magic. The vocal blend was incredible. That was the start of Silver. We had just two weeks to get ready to audition for Clive Davis of Arista and we needed to get management in place. Hartmann & Goodman, who had once managed the "Eagles" and were then managing "America", "Poco", and "Crosby,Stills & Nash", came up to John's house in the canyon for a listen. Later, they told us they got goose bumps when they heard us, and that is what made them decide to sign us. After another week of 14 hour day rehearsals, we went and played for Clive at his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I guess he liked what he heard, and signed us to Arista. Later while at the Roxy listening to another Arista artist, "Eric Carmen" Bob Fiedan an exec. from Arista, and us were passing around names, trying to come up with one for our group. We decided on "Silver" from a "Rolling Stones" song. Hartmann & Goodman wanted us to go back to being an acoustic trio, just John,Brent and myself, so we had to let go of our bass player Rick Carlos and drummer John Mauceri. Later we went back to the group concept and added bassist, Tom Leadon, brother of former Eagles/Flying Burrito Bros. member,Bernie Leadon. Tom Leadon had been with a band called "Mudcrutch" with Tom Petty, back in Florida and they have recently reformed an put out a new album/CD. We also added, Harry Stinson, who had played drums for Dolly Parton, Ronny Millsap and many others. He now plays drums and back up vocals for Marty Stuarts band and is one of the top call vocalist in Nashville. If you listen to country, you no doubt have heard him doing backup vocals for most of the top artist. Our first song "Wham Bam" was a pretty big hit, making it to 15 nationwide in Billboard, Cash Box, and Record World, and made it to number 3 on KHJ in L.A We didn't write the song, and it did not represent what our band was at all! We hated to have to sing it at the shows, but when it's your hit, what are you gonna do? We used to do a lot of cool tours with groups like "The Doobie Bros., Hall & Oates, America, Black Oak Arkansas, Poco", etc. We released our next single "Memory" which we did not write either. Clive had this thing, that he could choose three song's to go on the album and it was picked to be an even bigger hit than our first, by Record World, Cash Box and Billboard. It was cut short after we got into a situation with Clive Davis, and didn't see eye to eye, over who we were going to use as producer of our next album. Clive wanted us to use the same producer from our first album, Tom Sellers. Tom had produced Philly groups like "The Jackson Five and the Commadores", and did not relate to our kind of music. The Beatles and America's producer George Martin, had seen us play at the Sahara in Tahoe with America and was interested in producing us, but we would have had to leave our families for about six months to go to England and we didn't want to do that. Jim Messina was also interested in producing us, but we decided on Bill Halverson, who was a good friend, and had worked on "Creams" "Wheels of Fire" and the "CSN, CSN&Y and Stephen Stills" albums. That didn't fly with Clive, so he shelfed us and that was pretty much the end of "Silver" All the posters came down from the record stores, all adds stopped, our albums went to the bargin bins, we could not play, record or use the name "Silver". That was it. Brent Mydland joined "The Greatful Dead" as vocalist and keyboards, Harry moved back to Nashville and now is in Marty Stuarts band, I moved to Oregon and bought a house looking out on the ocean, just a walk to the beach, just north of a little town called Yachats. While living there, I was asked to audition for "The Flying Burrito Bros." but they broke before it ever happened. Later, after moving back to southern CA., I was asked to join "The First Edition" minus Kenny Rogers. I replaced one of the original members, who had passed away from lung cancer. I was member of "The First Edition" for a little over two years, until we broke up. All and all it's been quite an experience and I am very greatful to have met and played with all the great musicans that I have been with. Over the last few years, I have done some shows with John Batdorf in the southern CA area. I currently have a band after all these years, with my friend Murray Cullan, called "The Bowstring Soldiers" Keep an eye out for us, and come hear us if we are in your neighborhood. I think you would like what we do. Besides my originals, we also do a lot of "Buffalo Springfield, Poco, Byrds, Neil Young and Eagles". I have been working on a new CD that is almost finished. It is going to be called "Songs From The Blind Trail". As soon as it is finished, I will post some of the tunes here. I hope you will enjoy it.
Peace,
Greg
