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It all started in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, an unassuming, pragmatic town on the shores of Lake Winnebago. Both my mother’s and my father’s families had been there for a few generations. I had one great grandfather, a flautist, who died of the flu during the Spanish American War and another who was shot by a disgruntled employee. Even in Oshkosh life could sometimes be unpredictable.
I was born during the Second World War. My father, a Naval Academy graduate, was busy with the invasion of Normandy, so I started life with my mother and grandparents in the big house on Washington Street in Oshkosh. When my father finally returned from the victory in the Pacific, uniformed and decorated, I am reported to have pointed at him and say, “What’s that.” My relationship with authority figures has been somewhat complicated ever since.
I grew up in New Canaan, Connecticut, which the town fathers somewhat presumptuously labeled “The Next Station to Heaven.” Childhood was fairly uneventful, although the Oshkoshian roots always made me feel somewhat out of place in the quintessential eastern suburb. The discrepancy between my Midwestern background and New Canaan culture made me a bit of a cultural anthropologist, a participant observer at a very early age. A tour in Vietnam and a lengthy career as a clinical psychologist have provided me with more than an occasional glimpse into the dark side of human nature.
My on stage performance was once described as a combination of Harry Chapin, Johnny Cash, and Big Bird. I play music to tell stories—sometimes my story, sometimes the story of someone I know or someone I’ve met, and sometimes just a story I’ve made up. The songs, about the joys and sorrows of life on the planet, are my effort to share love and understanding with the audience.
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