How I Found The Groove

I remember growing up as a young teenager in the late 70’s in Munich, Germany.
Like any young musician I dreamed of being a rock star, but the reality of actually one day landing a record deal seemed a million miles away.
In those days German radio only played American Top 40 maybe for a couple hours a week. The rest was either Oom-pah-pah or horrible Schlager-music, which my generation had a hard time relating to. So we spend endless days in record stores, listening to music and studying the credits. They would actually play the vinyl albums for you there. We would find new music by word of mouth and by noticing certain sidemen on album credits. “Oh, Marcus Miller and Steve Gadd are on this record? I gotta check it out…”

I remember I was 18 and the progressive rock band I played in, just broke up, because the lead singer quit. The drummer asked me “ Do you want to join me in a funk band? I know this really good bass player…”. I replied “What is Funk?” Yes, I was sixteen and had never heard of this music. So we went to this guy’s house and he had the most impressive record collection. Everything from Parliament, the Commodores, the Ohio Players, Chic, Larry Graham and, and, and … The first thing he put on was Earth, Wind & Fire’s ‘Getaway’, and I simply lost my mind. I felt like a kid who was just given the key to his own candy store. There was sooo much music, which all was new to me and I LOVED every single cut I heard.

In the following months I spent countless hours studying and copying every lick from players like Al Mckay, Paul Jackson Jr., Nile Rogers and Wha Wha Watson. We found ourselves a black girl singer. She was pretty, but couldn’t sing her way out of a paper bag. But just the fact that she was black, we felt, gave us (white boys from Bavaria) some legitimacy. So we stuck with her. This band, like so many in the early days didn’t last, but my love for the groove remained. And it was always an important part of my playing, even after I moved on to playing Blues and later Jazz and Fusion.
In 1985 I finally made the jump over the ocean and came to America. Originally I came to study guitar and then composition, but then I just started working in the studios as an engineer and session player. I joined a funk/fusion band and we started hitting the clubs.
That’s where one other important experience happened that made me the musician I am today. It was the first time I really touched someone’s heart through my playing and the sound of my guitar. I remember very well when I stepped from stage after having something close to an out-of-body experience on the last song, and seeing a fan come up to me with tears in his eyes, saying “ Man I just love the way you play”. This happened in a small club in Pasadena, CA and the song I had played was ‘Berlin Romance’, which I later recorded on my first CD “Blue Planet”. It blew me away, that I had touched this person, who I did not know, in such a powerful way.
It proved to me that music is the one true international language. It knows now borders, it knows no race.
Fast forward three decades, 2 record deals, several tours, and a million other
musical experiences along the way and it’s still that feeling that I crave when I perform and write.

Being able to touch someone’s heart with the way you play or sing, is for a musician the ultimate rush. I can have fun playing music for myself, but stepping in front of an audience is ultimately more rewarding. I enjoy recording music in the studio, but having someone listen and groove to my song on a CD, iPod or the radio just gives me the kicks..
So it’s YOU, the listener, that makes all of it matter.
I look forward to many more, sometimes hard, sometimes ugly, always worth while
experiences along my musical journey. Here’s to hoping that you join me on this trip.
If you’d like to hear the most recent milestone of that journey, click here to listen to my album, ‘Feelin’Good‘.

Thank you for being a listener and for making it all come alive through YOU.