"When people ask me what my musical influences are, my answer very much depends upon my mood and the context, and I have to ask if they'd like that alphabetically, categorically or chronologically. I'm all over the map, really. I love lots of different things - moody rock guitar, great chords and funky bass, really REAL string and key sounds and a wide variety of vocal and lyrical approaches...plus weird electronic atmospheres,unusual time signatures and creative uses of SOUNDS that the modern Western world might not really think of as strictly musical. A lot of music I like predates my own lifespan or comes from places I haven't been yet (in this life!). I like the sounds of some African percussions instruments and Japanese stringed-things, or the different takes Greek or Middle-Eastern forms have on melody and harmony...

My parents were older when they had me, so when I was really young, their teen-twenties era was a lot of what I listened to, and that was somewhat different than what the rest of my generation was hearing. My parents were right at that cusp age (early 20's in the early 1950's) that just caught the beginnings of Rock and Roll before they settled into the marriage/job/family stage of life, a personal evolutionary step I sense terminated youthful hip-ness more abruptly in those days than now. In the full bloom of Rock and Roll, I had the benefit of being exposed to that, yes, but blended with pre-Rock treasures as well. I didn't even realize until later in my life how much some of that older stuff had influenced me, especially vocally, artists like Lena Horne, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby.

When I was three years old I figured out I could move the living room ottoman over to the big stereo console and actually balance on the edge, reach down inside, get an album and start it playing. This behavior was NOT encouraged. Nonetheless, I'd almost worn out the family copies of several Tony Bennett, Johnny Cash and Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass albums as well as the West Side Story soundtrack by the time they gave me my own record player at around age 4. The player I was given was just a small one for 45's. It was a Mickey Mouse record player and the playing arm was a cartoon mouse paw with a blue and white striped sleeve - dementedly dapper! As I think about it, I may have to blame some of my malfunctions in dress-sense on that thing as well...Hmm... Anyway, I immediately adopted my father's collection of 40's-50's blues, jazz and big band singles. I'd put on the wide-brimmed red felt hat and the old gold pair of high heels my mother had given me for dress-up, break out the 45's, then dance and spin myself into a lather. So I really haven't changed all that much.

We moved to a new town a year or two later...into a house the previous owner had wired for radio in every room. Radio: my new frontier! I had not known there was so MUCH music in the world, and without even being moored to the mouse-box. It was great! 60's-70's rock and folk in every room! I lapped up everything I could find and got excited whenever I heard a song that was new to me. For the next few years I went around singing the lyrics of the Association, The Zombies, The Doors, Simon & Garfunkel, Jim Croce...those were some of the first artists I can remember identifying as favorites, later Neil Diamond and Barry Manilow...and then (*sigh*) David Bowie.

Sometimes it was the overall structure that hooked me, sometimes just a good line or two, or just a sound. The poetry, the story, the raw feeling conveyed in primal impressionism...I loved it all. I appreciated that there were different ways to express emotion, and I relished all the different ways all the great music in the world made me feel. This has been the driving fixation and fascination in my life for as long as I can remember.