Biography

I fell in love with real southern barbeque when I worked on Amtrak in 1975. Growing up basically a Yankee (my home town of Port Chester, NY is right on the border of Connecticut) it took a train into the deep south to bring me face-to-face with true backwoods BBQ. I was the "entertainer" on Train 81, the Silver Star, NY to Miami, but I got off upstate so I could catch the train back north as I needed to play every night in the bar car. Sebring, Deland, and Okeechobee were the towns where I could get an awesome meal (and cheaply, for a young musician). So the wood-fired pit BBQ joints were my choice. What I remember the most was the small "mop" for the sauce. Never saw that in NY.

Fast forward to 2010, when I offered to take my girlfriend to a new roadside BBQ place up here in Putnam County, NY, she actually thought we were going for hamburgers and hot dogs. Boy, was she amazed at the pulled pork and BBQ brisket that we were served. She talked about it all night...while I had a guitar in my hands.

The next morning I put the finishing touches on the song and was in the studio not long after. My buddies and rhythm section, Tony Mercadante (bass) and Andrew Caturano (drums), did a great job on the recording and we had ourselves a hit in waiting. But these days, you can't do much with just the song's audio. You need images.

So I went on a tour of the South and mid-West to find them: Memphis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Mississippi, Alabama and North Carolina. I found some of the "shrines" of BBQ - Charlie Vergos' Ribs, Arthur Bryant's, Leonard's, Big Bob Gibson's. And I also discovered a new phenomenon, the BBQ and Music Festival! Check here to find one near you...and watch this site as we will be bringing our BBQ All Stars on the road this summer to a festival in your town

Soon, the CD was in the works and I reached out to some of my friends in the music business, and they all joined in. Ace Frehley, KISS' founding lead guitarist, scorched a lead on "Never Too Hot". Rob Sabino, a founding member of CHIC and keys on Madonna, Mick Jagger, Diana Ross, Jeff beck, Steve Winwood and many more, helped out on "A Chicken Ain't Nothing But A Bird" - an old Cab Calloway hit. Clifford Carter, James Taylor's musical director and piano, knocked it out of the park on the Professor Longhair staple, "Big Chief". Van Morrison's guitarist for over 30 years, John Platania, joined in as did John Regan who had played bass for the Stones, Steven Stills and, for over 30 years, with Peter Frampton.

We plan on taking the the BBQ festival world by storm this next season.