About East Mountain

Who am I?  Ah, that is a question for the ages!  Who are any of us?  I can tell you I was born in Omaha, Nebraska and have lived most of my life in and around St. Louis, with brief sojourns to Iowa and Indiana.  My dad was a clarinet player who toured with a big band in his teens, and my mom played piano, I'm told, though I've never heard her play. 

Music has been a constant in my life. I wrote my first song at age five.  I spent my youth in the '60s with a transistor radio plugged into my ear, and generally absorbed everything I heard: jazz, folk, country, rock and roll, classical, gospel, hymns, showtunes....I liked it all, but my biggest influences have been the singer/songwriters of my youth, like James Taylor, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, as well as groups that displayed great vocal harmonies, like Crosby-Stills-Nash, the Beatles, America, the Eagles, and the Cowsills.

I borrowed my older brother's guitar and taught myself to play.  In the intervening years, I've picked up a little bit of all sorts of instruments (bass, mandolin, banjo, dulcimer, drums, ukulele, trombone) though I wouldn't say I'm very good at any of them.  More than anything, they are the vehicles through which I attempt to express myself, along with my voice.  I've been in a couple bands over the years, but most of my public performance has been in church and local jam session venues.  I'd say I'm good enough to really appreciate those who do music well.

Professionally, I've been a teacher, an editor, a writer, and a graphic designer.  I've also been an autoworker, a lifeguard, and a hospital orderly.  I've been paid to do music, mostly at weddings, but not enough to call myself a professional musician.  That's okay...music is too important to leave to the professionals. I've been involved with theatre for most of my life, as an actor, director, and technical guy, designing sets, lighting and sound.  My most recent acting job was playing Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof," something I've wanted to do for a long time.

I'm the husband of a woman who puts up with me more than I deserve. I'm the father of four sons and grandfather of one adorable little girl.  I'm a child of God (as we all are) and am still wrestling with what that means.  Wrestling is a good thing.  Like Dylan said, "He not busy being born is busy dying."

As I said, I've been writing songs off and on since I was five.  Problem is, most of them only exist in my head.  There is little recorded evidence of my writing.  And while I don't think I'm a terrific writer or singer or guitarist, I've had some friends pass away in the last few years and I've come to realize life is short.  I don't want to leave this place without leaving some evidence of these songs behind me.  It's my minor grab at immortality.  If someone...my great-grandchildren or even strangers...can hear what I've created, then a part of me lives on.

My musical influences and listening favorites include:

the Beatles, the Byrds, the Cowsills, the Continental Drifters, the Band, the Thorns, Crosby Stills Nash (& Young), Loggins and Messina, Fountains of Wayne, the Avett Brothers, the Bottle Rockets, the Co-Dependents, the Gin Blossoms, James Taylor, Paul Simon (and Art Garfunkel), the Jayhawks, Limbeck, Elvis (Presley and Costello), Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, the Eagles, America, the Beach Boys, Barenaked Ladies, Ben Folds, and on and on.