About

I got my start as a working musician playing solo gigs on guitar at a coffee shop in Chestertown, MD fittingly called "Play it Again Sam".  Luckily, it wasn't called "Play a Different Song, Sam", because at the time I only knew one song.  After "paying my dues" as a lead electric guitar player in amazing but mercifully undocumented jam bands in college, I was one of the founding members and became the banjo player of Chester River Runoff, which for a decade was one of the Mid-Atlantic's busiest bluegrass bands, working a heavy schedule for devoted fans while managing to go almost completely unnoticed by the bluegrass world at large.  In that time I took breaks to do 3 tours in South America with the Quito-based Texas Express.  The Runoff stopped playing in 2015, and since then I've been lucky enough to play exactly the kind of music I want to hear a string band play with The High & Wides, which started as a duo with Marc Dykeman of the Runoff and now includes CRR fiddle player Nate Grower and "newcomer" Mike Buccino on bass. Our debut, "Lifted" came out in 2018, "Seven True Stories" came out in December 2019 and was in the early running for a Grammy, and our third album, "Blood" came out in March 2022.  I also play banjo in Only Lonesome, which excels in the bar-room style of bluegrass that was played in DC and Baltimore back in the day.  Over the years I've also been a member of Saltwater Stringband, Grand Ole' Ditch, Songs From The Road Band, and Qingdao, China's most popular bluegrass band, the name of which translates approximately as "Shitty League".  I currently play frequently with Uncle Baltimore and Nate Clendenen, and over the years have been a sideman, substitute, sat in, or collaborated with Letitia VanSant, Alex Peters, The Hot Seats, Corn Potato String Band, Caleb Stine, Michael Shay, Man About A Horse, Cris Jacobs, Joe Overton (Nora Jane Struthers), Abbie Gardiner (Red Molly), Jordan Tice, David Bromberg, Geoff Union & Ragged Union, Cory Seznec, Danny Burns, Phoebe Hunt, Tom Bailey, Melody Berger, Larry Keel, and more.  I also overcame the rumored local bias to come in 6th place in the Galax Bluegrass Banjo contest one time, don't recall the year but that was pretty cool.  That may seem like a lot, but I really like to play music or I wouldn't do it, so if you need some good banjo or OK mandolin, give me a ring.