Music has been the most important part of my life for as far back as I can remember. I've been seriously collecting records since I was 9 or 10. I think record collecting interests me, because it's about more than just the music. While you're collecting, you get involved in different musical styles, influences, record labels, producers, musicians on the sessions and the stories of how the songs came about. When you collect stamps or coins, you can only look at and admire them, but records...oh records...you can PLAY THEM!

I love all kinds of music; old and new. Older music has an alluring quality, because you have to seek it out and discover it. And once you do, you officially enter a secret club. You now know something that the general public either doesn't know or doesn't care about. Either way you look at it, the general public misses out. If you're into old Wynonie Harris records and you meet someone who shares that same passion, you now have an instant friend. There's someone out there who "gets" you. People ask me all the time how a white kid from the Boston suburbs could have gotten so into blues, R&B and soul music in a time when pop music didn't have much of a soul left? Well, I truly believe that these deep routed, passionate feelings are colour blind. I think I am truly an old soul. I was not made for these times.

I must give thanks and credit to one of my dearest friends, Michael Penniman. He may not know this and I'm sure he would deny it if given the opportunity, but he had a lot to do with the genesis of my love for rhythm and blues music. He used to come over to my house and bring Rolling Stones, Muddy Waters and J. Geils Band Records. It was this exposure that got me searching through the record bins for the blues originals. Mike and I "got it".