He has been called “a musician’s musician.” He has become known as the “Nashville Guitar Guru” for his work as a teacher and coach to professional performers, hit songwriters, and the next generation of Nashville’s rising stars. Six months ago, he released an album of twelve instrumental tracks and now he’s getting ready to release an online guitar course series. In 2019 he put out a book called, “The Perpetual Beginner: A Musician’s Path to Lifelong Learning.” On the performance side he has rocked a muddy crowd at Woodstock and played the blues with Les Paul on a Manhattan nightclub stage.
“Ordinarily, I’m a very reactive player, so, when I write a song there tends to be something of a skeleton and then as we develop it with the musicians, I’m exploring myself and finding what that is.”
“I wrote the music as guitar music with the intent of releasing it as a set of studies. In other words, music that’s written to be listened to but also to be performed by a student as part of a learning process.”
“I still have all of this stuff, these collections of guitar music and these nice little books with the sheet music and everything. It’s kind of an archaic skill because a lot of musicians don’t learn to read notes anymore and in pop music most never did.”
“I am convinced that the reason that I took to playing music in the first place is that I like the tactile experience of playing instruments you hit.”
“The irony is that coming to Nashville really started the process of my pulling away from being a working, gigging musician, and into more of the creative side in the way that I approach it now.”
“I am a songwriter and a performing artist because that is something that I do and when that isn’t happening in my life there is something missing.”
“When I first started performing, I was as terrified as anybody else, but then you realize that on a stage there are no rules… So, you are actually completely free to just be yourself.”
“The lane that I fell into was teaching because it was the area where anytime I put the effort into it, doors just opened.”
“If you’re deciding what you are going to do with yourself professionally, you have to ask yourself, Can I make money doing this, Can I be happy doing this, and, Am I better at doing this than other people.”
“I started hearing from people again and again, You have a different perspective. You do this differently. No one says the type of things that you say.”
“As a performer, the part that you can’t ever get past is that you can be completely great and undeniably great at what you do, but there is still the subjective element of taste, there is still the element of right place right time, and there is also – to be honest – the degree of commitment that I don’t think I understood when I moved here.”
“You come to learn after a while that you want to hang out with somebody first before you try to write a song ‘cause if you can hang out in a room for three hours and enjoy each other’s company, you can write a song.”
“Pulse”
“I Like What I See”