About
My grandparents, Donna and the late Bob Thompson, are responsible for my interest in music. When I was 2, I began playing a plastic guitar with them at jam sessions. At 3, I hit the stage with my guitar at the World Series of Fiddling held at Powderhorn Park in Langley, Oklahoma. There I met a retired fellow named Noel Peavler. He had just started playing the fiddle and would spend hours letting me jam with him. When I was 6, I decided I wanted to play the fiddle. I took Suzuki violin lessons from Ruth Wilson for 9 months then fiddle lessons from Dave and Monte Gaylord until I was 11. At the age of 12, I started spending time in Missouri with Matt Wyatt, Junior Marriott, and Alita Stoneking who exposed me to Texas-style fiddling and recordings of fiddlers like Major Franklin, Benny Thomasson, Normon and Vernon Solomon, Louis Franklin, Terry Morris, Carl Hopkins, Wes Westmoreland, Ricky Turpin, Gordon Townsend, and Jason Crisp.
At 13, I began my Texas mission meeting Bobby Christman for the first time in a Sonic parking lot and jamming in the back of a Yukon; Rex Gillentine at the Athens contest then spending a week with him learning guitar chords and listening to old recordings; Royce and Ray Franklin at Hallettsville and sitting behind them in a jam session with my tenor guitar; and Carl Hopkins, Wes Westmoreland, Steve Williams, and Anthony Mature sitting on the Fryers' porch at a jam. I learned that these musicians loved their music and loved sharing it. Not only have they made me the musician I am today, but they have also taught me lessons about life and respect.
