My journey with the steel guitar started in early 1950 when I started taking lessons using the Oahu Hawaiian Steel Guitar Method.  In 1951 I met Al Petty and studied with him for about three years.  We were living in Wink, Texas during the early 50's, and I went to school with Roy Orbison.  He used to come over to our house with his guitar and I would play my lap steel and he would play the guitar and sing.  Later Roy and some of his friends from school started a band called, "The Wink Westerners" and I played with them a few times.  Dad used to take me to play on the Pecos Jamboree in Pecos, Texas.  It was there that I met a nine year old fiddle player, Jimmy Seals.  He later went on to play saxaphone with "The Champs".  He played on their big hit, Tequila.  Then he and Dash Crofts got together and formed the group, "Seals and Crofts".  I played various Saturday night jamborees and dances around West Texas until I joined the U.S. Army in 1958.  I did my basic training in Fort Carson, Colorado, then spent a few months at the U.S. Army Signal Corps School in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.  I was discharged in 1961 after a two year tour of duty in Okinawa.

Shortly after leaving the Army, I moved to California and Al Petty, who was working for Fender, got me a job on the assembly line, wiring amplifiers.  I only worked there about six months.  The assembly line work just wasn't what I wanted to do. I spent the next five years playing clubs around the Southern California area, then in 1965 I moved back to West Texas.  In 1967 I did a tour with Ray Price and then signed on with Claude Gray.  After several months with Claude, the job came to a sudden halt when we had a horrible wreck in Oklahoma one night on our way to a gig.  Two fellow band members were killed and I was so shaken by the whole thing that I decided I was through playing road gigs.               

During the next three years, I played in Phoenix, Arizona for a while, then back to West Texas.  In 1969 I went on the road with Al Petty.  He had a girl singer working with him by the name of Barbara Hill.  To make a long story short, after a few months, we fell in love.  We quit our job with Al and went to Las Vegas, Nevada and got married.  We lived there for several months and I played in a club out on the edge of town.  In late 1970 we moved back to Tyler, TX which is Barbara's home town.  We both worked with local bands and I gave steel lessons at a Tyler music store.  During the time we were in Tyler, I did recording sessions at Robin Hood Brian's Studio, and Curtis Kirk's Studio.  I did a lot of recording with Tony Douglas at Robin Hood's.  Tony talked me into playing some road shows with him.  I was still nervous about traveling, but I worked with him for several months.

1975...That was the year I began my five year adventure at Gilley's Club in Pasadena, Texas.  During that time I played in the house band six nights a week, with Johnny Lee as our featured singer.  When Mickey Gilley was not on the road, he would come in and perform with the house band.  Most major country acts were booked into Gilley's, and we backed up the ones who didn't bring a band.  In 1979 they filmed the movie, "Urban Cowboy" at Gilley's.  Our band, formerly known as "The Bayou City Beats", was renamed "The Urban Cowboy Band".  We performed several of the songs on the sound track, and were filmed in several scenes in the movie.  The band received a Grammy Award for the best country instrumental performance of 1980!  Then in 1980, I left Gilley's Club and moved back to Tyler, Texas.

I am now living in San Angelo, Texas where I've been since 1981.  Currently I am playing with Johnny Dickinson and "The Big Country Band".  I've been with Johnny for about six years now.  I still play with other bands occasionally, if we're not booked.