I am looking forward to my upcoming blues performance at the historic Marysville Opera House on Feb. 15, 2018. It was a blast playing there last September with band mates Kelly VanCamp drums, harmonica, vocals and Melanie Owen, bass, vocals.

As a blues guitarist, I’ve spent my career playing a lot of bars and not always performing in places where patrons are there to listen to the music. In one particularly rough bar several years ago, the manager told me that he hires bands to keep the patrons from fighting – not exactly what I had in mind when I set out to write and perform my own songs. While I prefer to play shows in which the audience wants to hear good music, it’s a reality in this business that sometimes musicians, no matter the talent level, are simply there as background noise. That is why it’s such a pleasure to perform at events where folks are there for the music. But as I told our audience at our last opera house performance, there’s another reason why playing at the OH is so meaningful for me. As a parent of a young opera/classical singer who has performed on many big concert stages, I can finally say that I too have played music at an opera house – something not typical for most electric blues musicians. It feels like some kind of full circle and it makes it that much more special a performance.