My parents were hippies in the 60s, living in L.A., going to Led Zeppelin concerts and rushing the stage. They were way into music. My mom was 17 years old when she had me... like Penny Lane kinda story or something... but the scene was too much, and they decided if they wanted to raise a kid they needed to get out of L.A., so they moved to Grand Junction, Colorado. I remember, from the time I was four years old, laying on the living room floor studying all the album covers from the collection my dad had amassed. What really caught my attention was whenever he picked up his acoustic guitar and began to play and sing... Moody Blues, John Denver. He could belt out House of the Rising Sun. It was the one thing I knew I wanted to do, just like my dad. My girlfriend bought me my first guitar on my 18th birthday. She is now my wife, and we've been married for 33 years. While I've played this guitar over the decades, I never really took the time to learn songs all the way through. Mostly I invented stuff and always just loved the sound of what I could create. I wrote a few songs along the way and recorded in a studio with a great singer on two songs (mostly just playing my accoustic). I had a bucket list item that one day I would play an open mic night. Last summer, I actually made this happen: three songs in front of about 30 people. I was nervous as hell. The adrenaline was insane. After all this time, I didn't know I could actually sing as a lead... it's like I seriously didn't find my voice until I was 55. Fast forward a few months. I'm now part of a new band. I'm a lead singer on about a third of the songs and play acoustic. It's a cover rock and roll band, 70s, 80s, and 90s. We had our first gig, which was a two-hour set, a few months ago. It was intense. We have three more gigs coming up. If I'm honest, all I really want to do is sing and play guitar, but my wife has reminded me it's too late to be a rock star, and it was probably best for our relationship that I wasn't at an earlier time. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. 😀