View from East Tennessee

Who Am I? Former Musician (and, Sometimes, Music Hobbyist)

November 1st, 2004 at 5:28 pm (Entertainment)

As stated in another “Who am I?” post, I wanted to be a rock star when I was a kid. I spent most of my time at Rockridge High School in Taylor Ridge, Illinois, singing tenor in the choir, playing trumpet (and sometimes bass) in the band, and sometimes acting in school dramas and musicals. Most of my time outside of school was spent playing with the rock band Main Entry, which consisted of me, Shawn Driscoll (better picture here), Shawn Anderson, Eugene Reynolds (now pastor “Gene” Reynolds, latest church here, and now planting a new one in Madison, Wisconsin, which has not sprouted up a website yet), and an ever-changing series of singers and bassists. Singers and bassists to Main Entry were like drummers to Spinal Tap.Main Entry continued for several years to play in local and regional clubs after we all graduated from high school. Eventually, Eugene got saved, quit the band, and started writing and playing Contemporary Christian music. I later moved to Florida to enroll in the Music and Video Business Program at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, and the Shawns joined Eugene to form a Christian rock group named Doxa. You can find some of their CDs here.

At the Art Institute, I played a little, wrote a little, and recorded a little, including Gotta Do and a rock version of Yes or No, which got some local video play and local radio play respectively. I learned a good deal from the instructors there, including Ed (I forget his last name), who engineered the Eagles’ Hotel California.

After that, I managed a Peaches Music and Video store in South Florida for a couple of years (they apparently didn’t listen to my advice about getting into the digital age, as I can’t even find a website for them), and as I was becoming more focused on the business end of the music business, I moved to Nashville and enrolled at Belmont University to get a BBA with an emphasis in Music Business. The Belmont experience was great, and I would recommend the unversity to anyone. The place is a veritable breeding ground for talent. One of my favorite writers — James Isaac Elliott — is a professor there, and fellow students Brad Paisley, Ginny Owens, and Selah’s Todd Smith are all having great success today as artists. And those were just the ones that were there at the same time as I was. Steven Curtis Chapman was there and gone before me. As was Trisha Yearwood. The list goes on and on. Music Row is filled with Belmont grads you’ve never heard of working behind the scenes.

But as for me, providence moved me further east to Knoxville, Tennessee for law school (I was wait-listed at Vanderbilt in Nashville until it was too late), then still further east to the Tri-Cities (Johnson City, TN, Kingsport, TN, Bristol, TN, and Bristol, VA (and yes, that’s only three)). I gradually moved away from music and the business of music, except that I played a bit in one of the worship teams at Two Rivers Church while I was there and I hope to maybe add a voice or something to the worship team at Celebration Church here in the Tri-Cities. I don’t know what my life would have looked like had we stayed in Nashville, but I know what it looks like now. And life is good.

Although I haven’t recorded anything in ages, you can still hear some of my stuff here.