I had a good and quiet life but there was a degree of sin and lostness that began to build strength in us. After much prompting by a coworker Wanda and I attended a home church group and eventually I wasMusically though I never gave any consideration to ever playing music again and in fact my radio habits changed as well. I no longer listened to secular radio. I listened to Christian talk radio and I learned so much about my faith. I continued growing and became very zealous for God and His gospel. I wanted nothing to do with my past life and even though I did visit my past to make some wrongs right musically I never went back. I was asked to play a couple of times with a man at church named Dave on a few songs but I ended breaking the acoustic guitar he loaned me and that ended that. It was not until much later that something remarkable happened. It happened in the most unlikely of all places for me and that was at a Christian retreat called Tres Dias.
I can’t tell to much about what Tres Dias is because of the type of retreat it is but I can say that the music was mind blowing. What it essentially amounted to was a bunch of guys with a bunch of acoustic guitars playing some of the most amazing Christian campfire like songs ever heard! I was so fidgety every time they played which was a lot! I wanted to grab one of those guitars so bad it was almost maddening! And the sound of all those sweet sounding guitars with all those men singing praises to God- I was blown away to say the least. Also around this time I was the leader of a men’s ministry and I decided to incorporate this in the ministry. Another fellow Tres Dias attendee was a partner with me in the ministry and he had an urge to play too. He loaned me a small Epiphone acoustic guitar and we began playing for the mens events.
Our senior minister had resigned a few years earlier and our new minister, Mike Percifield, and his wife Connie, began leading our church in a new way. One of those ways was to get away from the old traditional way of worship and began gradually introducing a more contemporary format. They had gather a drummer, a guitar player and along with the family of our preaching pastor John Clark the new way of doing things really began to grow. At first I was uncomfortable. I could not figure out exactly what it was that made me that way but I just would kind of dread worship now. Once I began being honest with myself I realized it was that itch again. The guitar player, Jeff Stephenson, was playing a Les Paul copy and was using some subtle distortion and would even put in a lead run now and then. I was a bit jealous too, I have to admit that. But, that fact that our church was now including some modern worship songs was great.
I was going to have a big promotional launch for a mens ministry breakfast. I had asked if I could make a closing presentation for the breakfast by doing a song and had other fellow guitar players join me because one acoustic guitar, especially a shorter scale Epiphone, was not going to be heard. At the closing I strapped on the guitar and had the other guys come up and some singers that knew the song and we played Let The Fire Fall and it was simply awesome! Immediately afterward Connie approached me and asked if I would be willing to play for the praise band. Would I! I told her Reggie would probably be interested too and we showed up for practice that next Thursday. Jeff was out for a while working out of state so we were going to fill in a hole. I had to be miked because my guitar did not have a pickup but we had a lot of fun anyway. But, it was very hard working with such a professional bunch of musicians and singers.
Jeff was not due back for some time. Also, Reggie had to take the acoustic guitar back. So I was left without an instrument. It was OK, I was content that I got to spend at least a little time playing for the Lord. At the encouragement of my wife though I began looking for a guitar- an electric guitar. I visited a few shops but everything that would work for me was out of my price range. I eventually did an Internet search and found it. An Epiphone Transblack Alleykat! It was gorgeous and it was a hollow body. So it was conservative and yet could punch if needed. I got a Crate 30w amp and I was all set. It was strange at first- when I first plugged it in, it felt like I was almost light headed as I heard the growl of the very first E chord. And all this began a journey of steady change in our music and our sound. When Jeff came back we began working together to create a very awesome sound. Unfortunately Jeff left indefinitely after I began recording and has not returned. Hopefully he will one day.
Now, our sound is tighter and more advanced. You can hear some samples of our recording elsewhere in this site.
