I grew up in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, at the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. Music has always been a part of my life, but not to the extent that it is now. I was always a ballplayer. Football, basketball, and baseball were the three sports that I excelled at. I guess there needed to be a winner and a loser for me to be interested in it, and that is probably why I enjoyed those sports so much. I was placed at the quarterback position at the age of 8 and that would be what molded my personality for the rest of my life. Even at that age, I took being a leader very seriously. I played football until my junior year in college when a knee injury, followed by surgery ended my career. Its not healthy to be 6 foot 3, 175 pounds, and try to play college quarterback when you are too slow to move out of the way of a 6 foot 6, 325 pound defensive tackle OUCH!
When I think about it, I was destined to be a singer and a songwriter
I have very fond memories of being a kid and sleeping over at my grandparents house on Saturday night. Papaw would always get up around 4:00 AM, and step over about 5 of us grandkids that were piled in the living room floor, and make his way to the kitchen to make coffee. The smell still wakes me up to this day. Then the radio would come on. Not a small, clock radio either. They had one of those radios inside a cabinet with a record player on top. It looked more like a coffee table than a radio. After a cup of coffee, his old Alvarez guitar would come out, and he would sit and pick gospel tunes and sing for a long time. At 7 AM, he would stop and turn on the television to the Mulls Singing Convention broadcasted out of Knoxville. When you heard J. Bazel and Lady Mull, you knew it was time to get up, because mamaw would have breakfast shortly, and to this day, I dont ever want to miss a meal that my mamaw cooks.
Papaw taught me a few chords that I learned and could play just enough to sing a few songs, but I never imagined what was coming. I took a hotel sales job with the Hampton Inn in Pigeon Forge and was just trying to make a living and feed my family when things changed a little. I was sitting in a meeting with other folks in the tourism industry discussing a convention everyone was going to in Milwaukee, WI. I really wasnt paying attention to what was being said and after the meeting on the way to the car, Mike Gwinn said to me, Did you know that we are going to be in a band? I thought he was joking until a couple of days later when we met for the first time to practice. At that time I knew it was going to be me, Mike, and the guy from the Dixie Stampede. Well, that guy turned out to be Kipper Stitt and Ill never forget the first time I heard him play. Man, I was hooked. Our harmony was incredible from the very first time we practiced, the pickin (at least on my part) was a working progress.
Songwriting was something that I thought I would never be able to do until I finally broke down and tried. Ill never forget the first song I ever wrote. I wanted to write a song about my little brother, Andrew. We used to try to set up a lemonade stand and sell to cars that drove by. Unfortunately, maybe 2 cars a day drove by our house and slung so much dust on that dirt road that they probably couldnt even see us. So I decided to make something up, and decided that if we were alive in the late 1800s, Andrew was probably mean enough to rob the train, hence Ballad of the Knoxville Train.
So many stories that have been rolling around in my head for years have started to come out in my songs. Stories that became The Foundation, M.R.s Rolling Store, The Legend of Jack Huff, and others have been with my family for years, and I guess it just made sense to put them with music.
My latest cd, "The Kings of Orebank," will be released on March 4, 2006. The title cut is about my childhood here in Pigeon Forge. I think everybody has a place in their past they think of often with fond memories. Orebank road is that place for me, with all my cousins running around at my mamaws house. I am so excited about this project.
I guess the most known song I have written has been The Old Radio. I wrote that song with Roscoe Morgan one rainy night in Maryville, Tennessee. That song was on the bluegrass charts for over 8 months and got as high as 3 for a couple of months. Bluegrass fans love the song, and its funny how many kids ask us to play it.
Im very excited about the possibilities the future holds for my music career. Who knows where God will lead me next.
