Thank you for visiting! This site is the “home” of my original music, which is influenced mainly by rock, folk, and country musicians from the 1950s through the 1980s. I’m the youngest of five children, so my main source of inspiration was my older siblings’ record collections. They listened to a lot of of the “classic” bands of that era including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Creedence Clearwater Revivial, The Band, and The Byrds. Later on, in my twenties, I started to get more interested in country and bluegrass music. I also loved many of the 70s and 80s British pop bands and songwriters like Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello.

I’m primarily a guitarist, so many of my musical heroes are guitar players. I started writing songs a bit later on. I never saw myself as a vocalist, so performing my own songs was a big challenge at first. Looking back on it, it may have been my love of Mark Knopfler’s (Dire Straits) music that really got me thinking about writing my own material. He is an incredible guitar player; so that’s what initially drew me to their music. Then, hearing his voice and his amazing songs, I was challenged to come up with my own. Lowell George (Little Feat) had a similar impact on me.

I was born in Brooklyn, NY, and I grew up in the suburbs of New York City. I moved to Nashville in the mid-90s and spent a year or two there trying to soak up some of the country music that I was into at the time. I love the real “honky tonk” stuff like Hank Williams, George Jones, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson. I love all the country guitar, Telecaster pickers, too. Sadly, there wasn’t too much of that kind of country music around when I got to Nashville. However, the alt.country movement was in full-swing, so I really got into a lot of those bands. I especially love Steve Earle’s music. During that time, I rediscovered some of the great country-rock voices from the 60s and 70s including Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, and the country-era Byrds.

A few years later I moved back to the Northeast, this time to New Jersey. The “Jersey Shore” area is what I consider home. I lived there from the late 90s till about 2020. Around that time I moved to Columbus, OH, with my partner (and musical collaborator) Jeannie O’Neill. We’ve really enjoyed our time here so far and have met some great people and fine musicians. We have an acoustic duo (O’Neill & Martin) that performs in the area.

Thanks again for stopping by!

Albums/CDs