Welcome.

This site is mostly about song making and other writing and about making music with roots in southern American traditions. Here in Mountain View, Arkansas, home of the Ozark Folk Center, traditional music abounds. I play with an old time string band and with another group that focuses on Celtic songs. A local group of shape note singers helps me to stay in touch with a musical tradition I learned as a child. The songs I write reflect all of these influences, and my other writing draws heavily on Arkansas history and on life as we find it in the Ozarks.

My wife, Vicki, and I live here because of friends who share music and also share time, things that grow in gardens, and a sense that it is possible to live in a contemporary world without giving up timeless values. Ridges, rivers, and redbuds aren’t too bad in the bargain.

On the personal side, I’ve been a teacher and administrator in Arkansas schools and colleges and a producer for Arkansas’s pubic television network. Vicki has been a teacher, a lawyer specializing in criminal and juvenile law, and an administrator of juvenile programs. We have three grown children: David, the eldest, is nearby, Wesley has lived in Japan for a while now, and Laura is in San Francisco. She’s an artist, and you can reach her websites from our "Links" page.

On the "Music" page, you’ll find something about my writing and recording efforts and some details about the groups who let me sit in. There’s more about the different styles and traditions I’m involved in and about "the scene" around Mountain View and Stone County, Arkansas.

The "Projects" page is mostly about other writing. In addition to helping with educational materials for Historic Arkansas Museum, I usually manage to keep a couple of other writing efforts going, most of them having to do with Arkansas Stories. In fact, one of my projects has exactly that name.

Look around, and write to us for any reason or no reason.