About Me
I love music of all kinds, classical, jazz, country, fusion, etc..etc.. but my favorite music of all is rock. And to narrow that down somewhat, I would pick what is now considered 'classic' rock. Music from the late 60's, 70's and most of the way through the 80's. I listened to everything from A to Z and still love going to any flea markets and antique stores I can find and pick up great old LP's of bands from that era.
I grew up with music. I had piano lessons when I was young and loved that. I played in grade school, junior high, and high school bands, the high school jazz band, a musical church group, and various rock bands with friends in all my school years. Through all this time I taught myself guitar.
I have to thank my older brother Lyle for my taste in music :-) He is a few years older than me and he was a drummer in a rock band with his friends all through high school. He had cases of 8-track tapes and I would listen to everything he had. I would also go listen to the guys when they practiced and dreamed of doing the same thing myself. Which in the end is exactly what happened and loved every minute of it. For one gig I actually got to play guitar with my brothers band, at the time called "Shiver", which was such a big thrill for a young kid. One of the best times I have had performing. Two of the names in the credits are old friends from this band, Jay Bowman and Frank Adrian. They and the other members of his band were all, and still are, great guys.... Jay Bowman (keys), Lyle Dowell (drums), Alan Swanson (bass), Steve Riney (guitar), Frank Adrian (guitar), Dave Darmer (vocals) and Roger Reno (sound man, light man, craftsman, speaker builder, guitar builder ... and pretty much get anything done that needs to be done man)
I was in two or three different bands throughout Jr. High and high school with different friends and those were fun times too. My entry into the life of performing rock and roll started like this ..... I was throwing a frisbee with a friend out in front of the house where I used to live. I think I was still in junior high at the time or possibly my freshman year in high school. This kid rides up on a bicycle who at the time was a new kid in town and I didn't know him. He knew that I played piano. He comes up to me and asks "You wanna jam?" I had NO idea what he was even talking about. Jamming??? What's jamming???? That kid was Steve Hiatt who is also listed in the credits.
My very first jam session. It was upstairs at Steve's house. I didn't have any keyboards at the time and what Steve had available for me to play on was one of those old brown Magnus chord organs. You know, the one with maybe two octaves of keys and all the buttons on the left hand side for playing chords. For amplification there was a mic taped on top of it where the sound came out of running into some kind of small amp. The very first song we ever played, ..... of course ...... 'Smoke On The Water'.
I knew of them from school, but this is where I first really met both Keith Fishel (guitar) and Danny de Jaynes (bass). That was the beginning of my life in rock and roll bands. "London Fog" ..... my very first band. Steve came up with the name but I really don't know how or where it came from. London Fog was / is a line of men's clothing or coats or underwear. Something like that anway. I just hope we weren't named after underwear. After I left London Fog I had another school band with some other friends. This band we called Armageddon. It was me, Jeff Fawbush (bass), Jay Van Tress (drums) and Wayne Whitney (vocals for a while). After Wayne quit we got Rick Cline in the band. Rick and I later on tried to start a band but it never really materialized. All of these band, or attempts at bands, were lots of fun and have some great memories of all of them.
Right after graduating high school I tried getting a band together with some other kids from my area by answering an ad they put in the paper. These three were Mark Clark (bass) and Rick Bern (guitar) and Mark Howerter (piano). Others popped in and out of what we tried to turn into a band but it never really went anywhere. I can't even remember if we even had a name for the band even tho we did perform a couple of times. So we had to be called something??? As some of these 'kids' graduated they went on different paths and on to different things. Mark Clark is still in the music biz and doing pretty well for himself.
After high school, and with everyone going their own different ways for jobs and college, I ended up finding a job. There I met Kenney Eaves who at that time became, and still is,a great friend. We met and learned we were both musicians and also loved the same music. We got together and jammed around a little bit and that was the genesis of my favorite band that I was part of which we ended up naming "Threshold"
The band went through quite a few members but we stayed as Threshold for around six or seven years. Kenney and I were the two that started the band and the only two originals left at the end when we broke up. The last line up of the band was excellent. Our lead singer was a girl named Connie Crow and we were so lucky to have her in the band. Great Voice!! The other guitarist in the band was Curtis Marshall who wrote "Long Time Till Tomorrow" on my "Spot Lights and Stage Doors" CD. Both he and Kenny were/are really good guitarists. Each have their own sound and style but they really worked well and sounded good together. On bass was Darrell Diskey who was quite a presence on stage and our last drummer, who really hadn't been long with the band before we broke up, Chris Childers. Dean Betts was our sound man for quite awhile and he really got the band sounding great.
The original line up of the band was Me (guitar only at this time), Kenney Eaves (guitar), Greg Raymond (drums), Rick Poulson (bass), Jeff Windom (vocals). For a short time we also tried Pat Poulson (Rick's brother) on guitar. Later on we got Rod Hansen for vocals and Curtis Marshall on guitar, and Jeff Fones (bass). After Curtis ended up in the band I eventually ended up playing exclusively keyboards. Drums changed players a few times. After Greg we had Jack Berteaux, then Darren Swanson and then Chris Childers. Bass went from Jeff to Darrell Diskey. Then after Rod we got Connie Crow for vocals.
After Threshold broke up both Kenney and I ended up still playing together in a band called "Justus" playing basically all the same type of music we did in Threshold. Different song list but same style of music. In the end, that band broke up and that was the last rock band that I was part of.
I did play piano for about a year or so with the Knox Galesburg Jazz Band which was quite fun. We had a show at the Orpheum theater in Galesburg that was really special to me. My one and only brush with greatness, at least in the big band jazz world. Our band backed up jazz clarinetist Buddy Defranco. He played with some of the greats such as Count Basie, Gene Krupa, and Art Tatum. He was leader of the Glen Miller Band from 1966 to 1974. His credits are way too long to list here. It was really quite a thrill and a real privilege to play with such a talented professional.