"What's my style?"

            Like all musicians I have been asked the question repeatedly by the general public, "So what type of music do you play ?". This is understandable since being on the receiving end of music production, they are used to being fed music in neat classifications, or else organizing styles & genres in their minds in order to relate different artists to what they already know. And many in the music business purposely limit themselves by using the trappings of a "known style" in order to make their musical identity more defined.
          But this question has always stopped me in my tracks. Even when I think of a good reply, it tends to desert me the moment it's needed and I wind up stammering, or come up with some lame descriptive term. That's because on my end, things are very different.
         Before we get into my methods of creation, perhaps I should explain my musical background and influences. As mentioned before, in grade school we were given an extensive musical history and made familiar with so-called "classical" composers, and they became my early heroes. I had already seen the Beatles and had been greatly excited by their music, but was otherwise unaware of contemporary popular and Top-40 for a number of years yet.
       Also, I absorbed a lot of  popular music from the 20's & 30's from various sources. It wasn't until Jr. High that I found a radio in someones trash and brought it home, that I was astounded by what was going on musically. This was around the begining groundswell of the singer-songwriter movement, and I was never quite the same.

      The first tunes I began to play when learning guitar were old folk tunes, since that's what the instruction books came with because they were simple to play. I soon graduated to figuring out Beatle tunes. Or deciphering old sheet music of Beethoven et al on the piano. Somehow this division continued for quite a while; guitar for popular, keyboards for classical (and wishing I could get a harpsichord as I loved the sound).
      Before long I began to compose melodies of my own, at first with no harmonies, or later, with simple two-part accompaniment.
      Later, a book I aquired on how to play blues guitar, and a fascination with the roots of Led Zeppelin's influences led me to a long standing interest in playing blues. Senior year I ran across the opportunity to explore more of John Denver's work, and retraced his folk background which led me to some interesting stuff.
     To make a very long story short, these and other styles gradually came to merge together to where I never really saw a division between them...it was ALL music.
     So anytime I have the opportunity to play covers, anything might happen: Depression-era blues, old C&W, 50's folk or pop, music of the 60's, a few choice artists from the 80' s or 90's....or of course my old stand-bys, singer-songwriter material.

     Being a writer who receives his songs by inspiration, I have little control over what I write apart from to accept or reject an idea that comes. Often the tune itself will tell me what kind of style it wants to be "clothed" in. Or else I will choose elements of a particular style that seems to present the song in it's best light. So there are cases in which I have to limit instrumentation or the voicings in the arrangements to try to make it fit in a chosen style, but only if it enhances the tune. Many, probably most of my works are made with any elements that seem to heighten the tunes direction and meaning, often borrowed from different styles or no style at all!
     So, "What kind of music do you play?" is still an unanswerable question, eclectic as it is. This first album is a conglomerate of acoustic styles with interlocking/interwoven themes, which is how they wound up together. But the next album will likely have darker, more electric themes and maybe some lighter tunes and more jazz influence, but other influences will show as well.