Album Notes

Twelve original songs filled with twangy guitars, harmony vocals, thumpin' bass and my lonesome cowboy voice singing tales of broken farms and lost fortunes, rattlesnakes and sagebrush, old drunks, new hopes, bad habits, good intentions, deceipt and treachery in the high dusty desert of southern Idaho. Who knew a place so dry it can barely support life could be filled with so much drama?

As a songwriter, I spin stories, New Tales of the Old West I call them. I'm in the business of making things up. Fiction is the art of lying to tell the truth. If your lies are true enough, your stories or songs take on a life of their own once they are unleashed upon the world.

I've been playing music (and telling lies) in Seattle-area bands since 1977. I first started out as a bassist and backup singer in a heavy metal rock band, and I've since performed at festivals, in schools and auditoriums, and in a cross section of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly bars and taverns all across Washington

After buying a Martin guitar in 1999, I discovered, much to my surprise and delight, that a magical muse lived inside of it. Ever since then I've been able to make up songs out of thin air. I've written over thirty songs in the years since I bought that guitar, but they have all grown up and gone off into the world to make their own way, so they're not really mine anymore. I managed to round up twelve of them and herded them on to this CD.

I've always loved the desert country of the American West. I think it 's one of the harshest but most beautiful places on earth, but anyone who tries to eke out a living there is half crazy. Having said that, I have to admit I am descended from some of the early pioneers who tried to do exactly that.

Lately cowboy songs seem to be pouring out of my Martin like chili from a chuckwagon, so I guess I'm getting in touch with my crazy half. Kick off your boots, put up your feet and listen, as this Idaho Boy paints new pictures of the Old West.

Speaking of painting, the cover of my CD, Idaho Boy, is a detail from a pastel by Edmonds, Washington artist Janis Graves. Buy one of her paintings (at www.pastel-art.com). They're beautiful.