A Life in Rhythm

A nylon-string from Sears or somebody’s yard sale — the kind nobody minds the kids bashing around. There was an old upright piano too, and he had a knack for working things out on it by ear. The 45s got played to death: Chic, Kool & the Gang, the Oak Ridge Boys, the Dukes of Hazzard theme. The first cassette he bought with his own money was Van Halen’s 1984. That one was his brother’s fault, along with the Kiss records and the drives with Autograph turned all the way up.

Faith and music have never been two separate things for him. He grew up singing hymns at Woodlawn Cumberland Presbyterian, and once a month the church held a Worship Night where anybody could call a number out of the hymnal. That is still the measure — meaning and creation landing at once, in a room where everybody is feeling the same thing.

He started guitar at thirteen with a teacher two streets away, and he will still tell you how much that man shaped his life. The garage years went to keeping up with Mötley Crüe and waiting all summer for MTV to play “Paradise City” so he could get up on the bed and be Axl. The first real band was a Southern gospel group called The Disciples, later The Hollands.

He moved from Paducah in 1998 chasing work as a Christian rock guitar player, and he got it — a couple of artists’ worth. He still believes that music matters and has its place. The call just settled into something plainer: play, connect, be a musician among people reaching for something bigger than themselves. Houses got painted, guitars got sold online, code got written for twenty years. The playing never stopped.

Rebar at the Dam, with Copper and Lead, was the first stage that felt like a step up. But the Saturday jam at Miss Zeke’s Juke Joint is the one that did the work — getting up with whoever showed, trying things on the fly, week after week. Thirty-eight years in, he will tell you there was never one night it turned. Do what you love, connect with people, stay consistent. It is still a work in progress.