As a boy in East Texas, my father would wake us up singing; "Good morning to you, good morning to you! We're all in our places with bright shining faces! Oh, this is the way to start a new day!". Then he would go play "Deep Purple" on piano while my mother would sing. Now when I play solo, I always try to work that song into the set.

When I was a kid, my family moved around Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana a lot. Being able to play a little Ray Charles or boogie boogie on the piano was a great ice breaker, especially in Arkansas when I was in 2nd grade. I consider music to be the universal language that could potentially unify us all.

I fell in love with New Orleans music early on. The Meters always had the right groove for me. As a teenager, it was life changing to see Clifton Chenier and his brother Cleveland preform. Clifton was playing all the right licks and Cleveland was running all around the room playing the rubboard (frottoir) with thimbles on his finger tips. Little did I know that years later, I would be running around the hall with a wireless accordion. I have since discovered that Clifton and I had similar musical heroes. Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Lightnin' Hopkins and Professor Longhair are to name but a few.

I have been extremely blessed to have been able to work with so many of my heroes; either singing, playing or taking care of their instruments. The first 45 rpm single that I ever bought was by Little Richard and he was also the first rock star I tuned a piano for. Since then, I have tuned pianos for more awesome musicians than I can possibly remember. I also ended up preforming with many of those people. Such as Rod Stewart (I was keyboard tech and steel drummer) and Todd Rundgren whom I was a tech for his band Utopia and then a singer on his tour "A Capella".

I worked for several years with other musicians and finally decided to focus on my own band again. We have been able to keep busy for many years and had some real adventures including working with Muppets and opening for the Neville Brothers in Europe and Japan.

The current team of musicians that I am working with are top notch and our new album "Lagniappe!" is going to turn some heads!