I started playing guitar at the age of 14. My first guitar was a bass. I figured a guitar with only 4 strings has got to be easy to learn, and it was, (Lonnie), for me, anyway. My dad got me started on some old country stuff. I soon learned a few chords on the electric guitar and started playing stuff like Eagles, Skynyrd, Van Halen(1st album), Motley Crue, etc.
About 20 years later me and my wife was at a party where these three guys were playing music. Lonnie was on on guitar and singing, Tommy Bruton was on rhythm guitar, and Joe Dunham was on the drums. They didn't have a bass player so I asked if I could bring mine over and join in, just for fun. We played for a couple of hours and at the end of the night, Lonnie comes up to me and says they had a vote. I was to be their bass player for the band. Excellent!!!
This was my first band. We called ourselves "Southern Shade" and played gigs at local bars, birthday parties, a wedding reception, a class reunion, and anywhere else we could. Eventually we broke up.
One Saturday night I was sitting at home and I got a phone call from a friend that said there was this drummer(Ken) and a guitar player(Sean) that was looking for a bass player to play that night. I brought mine over and we jammed for a couple of hours. I told Lonnie about it and he joined in the next Saturday night. That's when "Southern Yankee" was formed.
I hope to make a CD soon and some air time on the radio would be really cool.