I grew up in a little town in N.E. Texas and as a boy, listening to my handmade crystal radio, there were only 4 - 8 stations in range, and the RPM phonograph (stereo didn't exist), as the evolution from the Big Band Era music of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Spike Jones, slowly evolved into Rock and Roll.
The one thing that didn’t change was the “Classic” country music that came through the speakers as I listened to The Grand Ole Opry and The Louisiana Hay ride (Hank William's songs ruled my crystal radio! Thanks Hank for introducing me to country, rock, and blues!
Thinking back, it seems that one day I was listening to Tommy Dorsey play his trombone, and the next day, out of nowhere, like an unexpected tornado arriving at my front door, Bill Haley And The Comets burst through the radio’s speaker, playing “Rock Around The Clock”. Soon that was followed by Carl Perkin’s “Blue Suede Shoes”, Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Great Balls of Fire”, Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue", and Elvis Presley’s “You Ain’t Nothing But A Hound Dog”.
About that same time, my dad bought us a Black and White TV and here came The Mickey Mouse Club, The Ed Sullivan Show, and Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.
It’s no wonder I fell in love with music. I was surrounded daily by the sounds of Texas singers and songwriters and it didn’t take long before I became hooked on the songs of Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys and the Light Crust Doughboys.
I first picked up a guitar when I was 6 years old and took lessons from J. T. Adams, a religious singer. I failed to be able to learn guitar at that time, however my love of music directed me to another instrument and I learned to play the trombone, and managed to become a member of the High School Marching Band for a few years. I had a really neat uniform, but marching at football game half times, quit appealing to me, as I discovered women and the effects that guitar playing and singing had on them.
In my teenage years until my early 20’s, more Texas singers and song writers came to my attention; Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lightning Hopkins, Lead Belly, Big Mama Thornton, Ernest Tubb, Lefty Frizzel, George Jones, Tex Ritter, Roger Miller, Willie Nelson, Don Williams, Johnny Horton, Jim Reeves, J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper), Lead Belly, Buddy Holly, and Roy Orbison.
I noted that none of these singers played trombone, so I traded in my trombone on a 6 string acoustic guitar and traded a case of beer to a cowboy going to my college to be a veterinarian, to teach me the chord progression in the key of C. I played the 4 chords over and over again, and I would usually sing Johnny Cash songs, although I began to move into other artists that were becoming so prominent in the early and mid 60’s, Eric Burton and the Animals and The Rolling Stones.
Texas songwriters and entertainers continued to gather momentum and eventually, I harvested the sounds of Waylon Jennings, Jerry Jeff Walker, Ray Wiley Hubbard, Buck Owens, Ray Price, Doug Sham’s Sir Douglas Quintet, T-Bone Burnett, Edgar Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Mickey Newbury, Phi Ochs, Townes Van Zandt, Janis Joplin, ZZ Top, Meat Loaf, Asleep at the Wheel, Jerry Jeff Walker, Billie Joe Shaver, Guy Clark, Steve Earle, Joe Ely, Mac Davis, Clint Black, Robert Earl Keen, Lyle Lovett, Don Henley, Freddie Fender, Mike Nesbitt of The Monkees, and Delbert McClinton.
In 1966, I left Texas, headed to Quantico, VA, and after receiving my commission as a 2nd Lt. in the Marine Corps, I was off to Vietnam, and one of the first things I did upon arrival, was to buy a very cheap guitar. At the same time, I discovered that I could make money (and/or barter) with my music.
April 1967 Shenandoah Valley
Battle of Hue, Vietnam 1968
I became a professional musician in of all places, Vietnam! I actually got my first paying gig in a combat zone, if it is fair to say that singing and playing for drinks in tips, counts as a “paying gig”. My Venue was a plywood constructed Officer’s Club in PhuBai, where I played (when not being deterred by rocket and mortar attacks from an unseen audience who was set on insuring that our side didn’t have very much fun) the songs of Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, and Roger Miller.
And every morning a familiar “Wake Up” call would come through my cheap transistor radio, “Good Morning Vietnam” which would introduce me to the events of the world and new music and new singers whom I had never heard of before.
One night in 1967 or 1968 (my tour of duty), sitting on the ground with a make shift movie screen, I saw a movie called Nashville Rebel starring a guy named Waylon Jennings (who had been Buddy Holly’s bass player the night of the air plane crash which took the lives of Buddy, Richey Valens, and The Big Bopper). That was seven years before Waylon and Willie would shake up America with their Outlaw Country Music. By then, I was already doing Waylon’s old music, so I jumped on the bandwagon quickly and started doing only Outlaw Country.
After returning from Vietnam, and upon discharge from the Marine Corps, I took my guitar, car, and brand new suit, and headed to Los Angeles and the Corporate World. I was about to discover the entertainment world and Hollywood, my next stop along life's highway of adventures.
It got very exciting as I began hanging out in Hollywood’s Ye Little Bar with entertainers, sports stars, and actors, and I started singing Neil Diamond songs at Kelly’s Steak House in Marina Del Rey, where I lived. No contract was signed, but in exchange (a little barter) for my songs, I would get paid good scotch and prime rib for my effort.
Playing and Singing for drinks in tips and living the Marina Del Rey and Hollywood wild life was a fantastic learning experience and lifestyle for me in those days.
But Corporate America continued to pull me into it and on New Years Day 1973, I left Marina Del Rey and arrived and settled in Denver, then a cow town, and found myself once again playing my music to audiences that were into Outlaw Country music.
Marina Del Rey & Hollywood, 1971
Univ. of Massachusetts, learning the procedure of Angioplasty, circa 1980
I would stay in the Corporate world until 2004, enjoying a lucrative and significant career in the medical industry where I was paid to do sales, marketing, and training in the cardiovascular field; enjoying and participating in the neoteric growth of interventional cardiology and angioplasty. I thoroughly enjoyed my career during those 30 plus years.
Within two years of arriving in Denver, thanks to my friends Tommy McDonald and his cousin Lamar Fike, the founder of Elvis’s Memphis Mafia, in January 1975, I found myself with the Elvis Presley entourage in Vail for his 41st birthday, and for the last one and half years of his life I was fortunate to occasionally join up with his entourage and wear a back stage pass in his spectacular concerts.
During this time, I began writing songs for Tommy and Lamar, recording them in studio, and entertaining every chance I got.
After Elvis’s death I put playing music aside, except in my basement, until I retired.
Tommy McDonald, Little David Wilkins, Lamar Fike, and Bill Sparkman, Nashville 1978
Fireside Session, Nashville 1978
Then one day in the winter of 2011, very bored with the retirement life, I was wintering in Carmel, California. Sitting on my front porch across from The Golden Baugh Performing Arts Theatre, I listened as entertainers did a performance featuring the tribute songs of Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Brenda Lee, James Brown, Richey Valens, The Big Bopper, and others who were truly the innovators of the Rock and Roll era.
As I listened to the music of the exciting young professional singers and actors, it occurred to me that I had at one time, in my younger life, played all the songs the repertoire group played that night.
I’ve always been a dreamer, but after hearing their marvelous performance, I decided to get back into the entertainment and songwriting world, which had once meant so much to me.
I owe the Golden Baugh Management and the amazingly talented performers a very big - Thank You!
In spite of the fact that I was no longer young, I still had my voice and I wanted to play to audiences, once again.
I founded Spirit Wind Productions in 2011, which brings me to NOW!
After gathering new material I had never sung before, and hundreds of hours spent practicing, I have now renewed my love affair with song writing and entertaining.
Both my venues and repertoire and the songs I now write, are diverse and I while I actively pursue gigs to play, I’m always recording both the songs I write and the music I sing.
What about the future? I will continue to entertain and write my music, hoping that my songs will be accepted by the listeners of the world, and possibly be recorded by an artist that might be able to present them to that audience for fun and profit.
My connections in the music industry, like me, are now older and probably, just a little wiser now. The industry and the music have changed, but the Classic Rock, Country, and Blues music that so many people grew up with and continue to support remain.
The younger people are now discovering the history behind the music they listen to today. A Revival of the music I sing is now occurring; now called Americana, Retro, of just Ol' Time Rock, Country, and Blues.
One thing that continues to thrive amongst those of us who continue to play the music from the past, is the actual love of the music we lived, as Bruce Springstein has written, "we got one thing in common, We Got The Fire Down Below. We'll be playing it until we die, because we made our "Bones" in this music and will play it with or without a pay check. We are our music.
I realized when I start Sprit Wind Productions that it was very unlikely that I would get a recording contract from any of the major record labels, so I started Spirit Wind Records as a sub-division of Spirit Wind Productions. I immediately gave myself a recording contract.
Self-fulfillment and self-promotion is a good thing at my age. And why not? There are no limits to the creativity offered by today’s electronic innovations and the internet.
For now, I'm delighted to once again enjoy being able to perform and write my music.
Want me to play you a song or two, or 500? Have a seat! Pour yourself a drink! Enjoy!
