About me(and my love for music)
I was born on a small farm near Port Jefferson,Ohio...about 45 some odd miles northeast of Dayton and 35 miles southeast of Lima....halfway between the two West Ohio cities on the I-75 corridor.
Somehow I always had a hankerin' for music. My dad played guitar (he was self-taught..although he was no Chet Atkins or Les Paul by any means.)..he did it for leisure and not for a profession. He farmed on a shoestring while also working as a machinist. My mother stayed home with me as I grew up but going back to work when I hit my pre-teens. During this time I discovered how popular music can have healing qualities,most notably when your're bullied at school or when your grades don't compete with one's peers or when that pretty girl next door gives you the "cold shoulder." or when your carreer goes belly-up and you find yourself in your own father's shoes stuggling as he did. Music can soothe...and it can inspire.

Elvis,The Beatles,Johnny Cash,James Brown and other pop,country and R&B sounds and stars in the 50s,60s and 70s had a profound impact on my life. I played guitar in my pre teens and early teens,played the drums in the high school band and tried my hand at radio broadcasting for twelve years.
My parents and my wife's grandparents who raised us respectively  always kept the music going in some form or another although they were no accomplished musicians by any means..They would put on Lawrence Welk or "Midwestern Hayride" when it came on the television on Saturday nights. My older sisters and I always had the AM radio tuned to a Top 40 pop station when we were growing up.
Years before  MTV there was the AM radio,American Bandstand(with its direct and indirect variations and spinoffs..) and need I say more about Ed Sullivan, Hollywood Palace and the likes therof.
The local appliance/TV store had a record section and a listening booth..they knew me by name as I frequented there as a kid.Never could get enough of the music.

I eventually met my wife about seven years after I graduated high school and moved to Piqua when we were married.
Still today,when family,school or financial problems arise,music solidifies itself as a healer.
Though I have long outgrown MTV I still "tune in" to see what my kids listen to.
Not much has changed since our younger days execpt for the seemingly radical change in musical genres...but then again,that's how our parents felt too when we were growing up. The more things change,the more things stay the same.

And music is there to inspire,comfort,soothe and heal.

"Blues is a healer..all over the world.
...It healed me..it can heal you."

                        John Lee Hooker 1989
                         (1917-2001)
"Music makes my day...It warms an empty place when you're away. Music makes my day.
Love, you are my song.Your melody so soft,your love so strong. Love,you are my song.
And though good fortune seems a long time calling, And sadness creeps into my song,
my pearly freind will gently soothe me, and sing along.
...Music makes my day. It warms an empty place when you're away.
Music makes my day..you know it makes it!"

John Farrar 1973
Back to the homestead.