As you can see, the pedal steel guitar is one of my favorite musical instruments. It has also proven to be one of the more challenging instruments as well! You could say that my musical tastes have changed over the years, from Rock'n Roll in my younger years to Country Rock. I can still remember the days when some friends and I would thrash out songs by groups such as Kiss, Deep Purple, April Wine, Stampeders, The Guess Who, Rolling Stones, ...well I guess you get the picture!
    My musical career started out as a baby, you could say, when I would hum tunes before I learned to talk. As a little guy, I would also tend to lull myself to sleep by rolling side to side and humming. My first musical instrument that I took seriously was the drums. As a 6 or 7 year old boy, I would put on an "Archies" record, sit in my father's chair, and pretend that I was "Jughead", so to speak. Thus, my parents bought me a small drum set to start out on, and joyfully played along with records any chance I got. I played with a few friends in a band in junior high called "The Staggers"...quite a name, huh?
    While playing with "The Staggers", I became interested in learning to play the guitar, so over a period of time, that's what I did. Now, in recent years, I have also fallen in love with the sound of the pedal steel guitar, so decided to take this instrument up...probably the biggest challenge of my life!  There are many steel players I admire, and one of my main mentors on the instrument is Paul Franklin.

To hear the Steel Guitar, click on my picture!  (NOTE: That was a steel guitar wave file, but NOT of me playing..:-)

    At the present time, I am playing in a band called "Rodeo", which is a three piece band playing at dances in the local area. We play anything from old rock (50's and 60's), New Country, and some plain old Rock'n Roll! We are weekend warriors, strutting our stuff at dances in clubs any chance we get. We just completed recording our first CD called "Life's Like That" in August of 2000. It was over a year in the making, but we are happy with the results.

The following link contains much great information on the pedal steel guitar that I play, which is a "Carter" guitar. This link will take you to their site.
Carter Steel Guitars

The Pro I bought my Carter Steel from, Al Brisco, has a steel guitar business in Streetsville, Ontario. Visit his great site...Steel Guitars of Canada. It has all the information on steel guitar anyone would need. Here is a picture of Al playing the guitar I subsequently bought from him...

I also love to play the electric guitar. This picture on the right was taken in 1996 while I was in the midst of working on my contemporary gospel CD "Through the Fire". This CD consists of all original material, except for one song written by a friend of mine, Bill d'Entremont. Watch for more info on this CD as I put this page together.
The guitar I play is a Fender Strat, which I'm very happy with. I play through a Peavey Nashville 400, which I obtained since it is an excellent steel guitar amp. I also do alot of MIDI programming, using Cakewalk as my sequencer and a Roland U-20 keyboard. An Alesis SR-16 drum machine, a Roland JV-880 sound module, and a Yamaha MD-40 disk drive complete my sequencing gear.

Here is a picture of Jerry Boudreau and myself working on my CD "Through the Fire" in the studio at Something Creative in Yarmouth...

Songs on the CD are as follows:
1) Looking Upward
2) The Lord Used You
3) One Solitary Life
4) Come to the Altar
5) Backs Against the Wall
6) Under the Sheets
7) Through the Fire
8) Poor Man Down
9) So Much to Give
10) In Time (Inst.)

The CD cover of "Through the Fire" was also designed by Gerry!

WORK    I currently work in the office of a sheltered workshop called the "Kaye Nickerson Adult Service Centre" on Parade Street in Yarmouth. It is here that physically challenged adults engage in fulfilling activities such as building lobster crates, pallets, wooden stakes, lawn furniture, rough boxes, cremation boxes, and promotional buttons. The Centre employs 7 people and serves approximately 35-40 clients. It is open year round.  I started working at the Centre on a part time basis in 1993, and the position finally became full time in December of 1999! My job is in the office, looking after the accounting and secretarial duties.

This is a picture of one of our clients at the Centre, Tammy Vacon, at her prom...age 19.

 

 

 

 

 

Royal Canadian Legion Br. 61     I have also been involved in the Royal Canadian Legion in Yarmouth for the past several years, serving in the capacity as treasurer for a number of years . The Yarmouth Legion has undergone extensive renovations. The building is old and believe me, the renovations were needed. The building looks great now, having been fitted with new siding.
 

Enjoying the view from MY Jaguar!

I sure liked that Jaguar! It had a Mahogany dash board even!
 

Well, take a break while looking at my page and have a Coke...it's on me. :-)
Oh how fondly I remember when Coke came in its distinctive bottles! The picture of me on the right was taken in Bagotville, Quebec, around 1963. We lived in Bagotville from 1961 to 1964, then moved to where I've lived up to now...Yarmouth, N.S. More information on Yarmouth may be found on the link to Yarmouth on the McRae main page.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Let me lead you to some food for thought...CLICK HERE FOR "FOOD FOR THOUGHT"