I  was born just outside of Boone N.C. just short of the Ashe County line in a little community called Big Hill a virtual hot bed for bluegrass music and musicians.  My early memories of music was my father talking about his father playing claw hammer banjo which is still in the family, most Sunday afternoons on the porch of their house.  I did not get to know my grandfather on my dads side, he passed when I was 10 months old.  When I turned 10 my dad brought a homemade guitar home for me with instruction records to learn how to play, I was excited and so was dad as he never learned to play anything but always wanted.  Later that evening my mom and I heard something weird coming from the living room, and we looked around the corner and dad was listening to the record on 75 speed instead of 33 and a third!!  sounded like two cats fighting in a sack.  But what got me even more interested in music in general mom always had country music on the radio and of course Ed Sullivan  and others.  But watching the Beverly Hillbillies on TV and seeing Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs playing just a banjo and guitar really blew me away.  I started taking a few lessons at Green Valley Elementary with my best friend Mark Krider. But we started staying at each others houses and started listening to every thing we could on record my Flatt and Scruggs.  Mark and I started playing anywhere our parents would take us, spaghetti suppers, the apple festival in Boone etc.  Then my dad introduced me to Boone' s very own Doc Watson, flat pick guitar genius.  Dad would take Doc to Boone sometimes when I was younger in the car and we struck up a friendship that lasted until his death.   He was also a great harmonica and claw hammer banjo player. I learned how to flat pick and finger pick listening to him.  A little later as Mark and I were playing and getting together, just up the road a young man just three years younger b the name of Steve Lewis, had starting playing guitar as his dad Ernest played some and sang and  my dad had taught Ernest in school in Ashe County, so the three of us would get together and play.  This went on for awhile and Steve and I started playing more and met a banjo player named Paul Buchanan. another wonderful musician.  In the summers we would play at Tweetsie Railroad as a threesome, and on the weekends we would play in the summer and fall outside for the line waiting  outside at the Dan' Boone Inn a restaurant in Boone NC.  After the line would die down, we went inside and played from room to room and any private parties that were upstairs.  they also let us eat along with getting paid, but if it got really busy we had to wash up and help put ham biscuits together to help the kitchen keep up, man you talk about fingers hurting from hot biscuits. We did this for about three years while also playing with our own group called Sweetwater. and once again we played everywhere we could, private events, etc.  During this time we were offered to be the traveling band for the World Champion clogger's , the Daniel Boone Clogger's based in Boone NC.   We played events in and around the High Country with the clogger's but they wanted the band name to be the Daniel Boone Bluegrass Express. Was myself, Steve Lewis, Paul Buchanan, Chris Sigmon, Steve McKinney and Morris Hampton, who was the leader of the clogger's and would sometime perform with us. We were very proud to travel to Opryland in Nashville TN and perform for them, and was invited to perform the opening act for Lester Flatt and the Nashville Grass at the CF Martin theatre.  We also the same year performed with the clogger's at the NC State Fair in Raleigh NC, and won second place in the state bluegrass band performing  the Smokey and the Bandit movie theme that was so popular.  We entered band competitions anywhere we could and would place in guitar and banjo and dobro.  Once again awhile later the band would have a few changes so myself and Steve Lewis who has become a sought private guitar instructor and banjo player, he has won countless awards at Winfield Kansas, MerleFest and other venues, Gary Trivette from Sugar Grove NC just outside of Boone became our bass player  and now performs with  Nick Chandler and Delivered and national touring act.  Steve Lewis  is now a multi award winning banjo and guitar player and instructor winning  awards in Winnfield  Kansas, MerleFest and more.  Mark Krider is now based in Texas heading a band calle Hillbilly Fever.