Recently the Windy City Cowboy sat down to answer a number of fan related questions. While leaning back in his chair and resting his boots on the table, the Windy City Cowboy lowered his hat over his eyes and started with "a long time ago..."

I was 15 years old and living with my older brother in beautiful downtown Burbank, California. My brother was a musician and copyist for the top publishing companies in Los Angeles. In his spare time he worked for Aria Guitars and one day he brought home a guitar just for me. I was ecstatic and began playing my new guitar non-stop every free moment I could.

Within weeks I had completed 2 to 3 songs. One day my brother was standing in the doorway to my room listening. He asked if I had written the songs I was playing and I sheepishly said "yes". He just looked at me in amazement as he had spent years practicing the guitar and learning theory on good song writing. And now here was his younger brother writing better songs in just a few weeks.

My first paid performance was in Santa Cruz, California at the Crows Nest in Yacht Harbor. I was 17 years old and I made a whopping $75.00 plus meals (we're talking steak and lobster here) for 4 hours of cover tunes and original songs. I really enjoyed this time during the summer as I was able to see which songs the audience did and did not like. This helped me fine tune my style to what people enjoyed.

I moved to Santa Rosa and performed coffee houses while attending a local junior college. I took music theory (for the second time), piano and general liberal art classes. I wanted to develop my music and writing skills, but my focus was on writing songs.

Every time I would attempt to practice or study I ended up writing songs. I remember one time when I was supposed to be practicing the piano I ended up singing away and writing down a new song. My music teacher happened to walk by the practice room and burst in asking, "what in the world are you doing? You're here to learn piano, not write songs!" I replied that everytime I'd play a new chord or hear new melodies I was compelled to write a new song. He gently reminded me to first master the basics because I could always write songs later. However, the desire to write was always greater than my desire to play.

I lacked structure in my life and I was always in a hurry to make the finished product. I would learn just enough theory so my next song was a bit different, but I was stuck writing and playing in primary keys.

<Laughing> That's kind of funny because I'm still working on songs I started over 25 years ago. Then there are those songs that go from melody to finished song in just 15 minutes. It really all depends.

But I'm never happy with a song until the lyrical aspect of the song says exactly what I wanted it to say.

I've never thought of myself as a performer. Elvis was a performer. In my opinion, performers are people told what to sing, what to say, who to talk to, who to associate with, or who to get your picture taken with. I really don't want a part of that, so that's why I never think of myself as a performer.

I'll always remain a writer at heart - staying focused on the content.

Early in my career I wasn't opposed to signing with a major label. However, after spending a great length of time in the music industry, I saw first hand the ruthless practices the publishing companies evoked on the artists. I wanted to maintain control of my music and the only way to do that was to remain independent. So before the rise of independent artists, I struck out to produce, publish and release my own music under my own label.

It's hard! I've met so many talented writers in my career who have outstanding songs and dynamic recordings that you'll never hear on the radio - all because they're not signed with a major label.

But I have found that live performance is key to building an audience.

As far as getting on the radio it's kind of hard since I would describe my music as alternative country and alternative Christian - which doesn't fit mainstream media. Oh well, pioneers are a rare and lonely breed and that's okay with me.

My music style is definitely country, but I'm influenced by blues, gospel, swing, and classical. You could describe my style as alternative country and alternative Christian.

My lyric style is strongly influenced by the Bible - God's love letter to all of us - and the message is of the upmost importance to me.

Back in the late 70's I playing with the house band at the Palomino Club in California. It was here that I met the late Red Rhodes who became a friend and a mentor.

As his career progressed he became one of the best steel guitar players to ever play country music. In fact, it was Rhodes who played the steel guitar on almost every movie sountrack that required a steel guitarist. It probably helped that he was one of the few steel guitarist who could actually read music and not just play by ear. He had no competition.

Well, my new CD, Out of Our Hands, is now officially released. I'll be busy this year promoting that through performances around the Chicagoland area. In addition, I'm also working on a childrens CD I hope to record later this year.

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