I have been making up songs since I was about 12 years old, when I would run through the woods behind my house singing show tunes and yodeling. Drawing upon the rich tones of my childhood, that music would well up from inside me as though Judy Garland and Patsy Cline had struck up a musical chord with Nat King Cole and Cole Porter, while Johnny Cash strummed his train-ride beat in the background. And let's not forget Doris Day! That's how my life-long songwriting habit was born: running through bean fields and hayfields, pretending to be a composite of my musical heroes.

Those childhood songs were also inspired by my father, who would play cowboy music with his guitar and harmonica. In my previous album, COWBOY ROMANCE, I returned to my musical roots writing cowboy swing and ballads that sound ed more like they were found in an archival file than derived by a modern songwriter.
 

Although I continue to write a little Western Swing, my songwriting has evolved into a composite of jazz and swing styles that range from the 1930's hotclub and French Cafe music, inspired by Django Reinhardt, to the romantic American Songbook era of the 1940's and 50's.. Thanks to my pianist, Tim Peck, my songs have taken wing in his complex arrangements, which add texture and depth to the music. While collaborating for the album TANGO WITH THE MOON, we created a bosa nova, romantic fox trots, and a dramatic art song among the upbeat swing tunes. The variety of music expresses the many faces of love which I tried to portray through story and song.

I have found my true voice in romantic jazz ballads, swing and hotclub. My current band, GYPSY ROMANTIQUE' is an evolution of the Gypsy Cowboys with a little more jazz and a little less western swing, and a little more of the Latin beat that you hear in the Jazz era.