I was born and raised in Inuvik, Northwest Territories. If you don't know where that is, get a map, locate Canada, find the Northwest Territories, look for the Mackenzie River, follow it all the way north, we're about half an inch from the Arctic Ocean.
I grew up listening to records of popular C&W artists. My cousin Ebun taught me all the hurting songs any self respecting guitar player ought to know, including Merle Haggard's "Sing me Back Home" and Freddy Fender's, "Before the Next Teardrop Falls." We were all of thirteen.
Later, my brother Gerry turned me on to Kris Kristofferson. At one time I could sing every Kris song ever recorded. Then Jackson Browne's Running On Empty Hit the charts and we got turned onto that country rock, including The Flying Burrito Brothers with Gram Parsons and the first Eagle's records.
While roughnecking on an offshore oil rig, I heard Sonny Terry and Johnny Winter's album "Whoopin," a rollicking good time blues album with lots of Sonny's harp and Johnny's dobro guitar playing. Soon after I saw the movie "Crossroads" about a young kid looking for a lost blues song. Then I found Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Big Joe Turner. The mystic of the blues hooked me and I've been a disciple ever since.
I started writing songs about my friends and things that were happing in my life. I had those first thirty songs I'd written down somewhere. Damned if I can remember more than a handful of them. Apparently they are in storage in Edmonton somewhere.
I live in Whitehorse Yukon with my wife Jennifer and our two children, and our dog, Uncle Jack. I like my life and I like my music. I think I was born to entertain people, cause I like it and it makes me happy. And from what I hear, folks enjoy my brand of music and humor.