Biography

I first began to appreciate the power of music as a young boy listening to AM radio in Westbury, Long Island NY, in the early 1960s. Not being one of Jehovah’s Witnesses yet, I soaked up virtually everything that came across the airwaves. It wasn’t long before I began expanding my musical horizons, with the influence of my parents’ record collection, to the great composers such as Chopin, Tchaikovsky and Mozart. Still in grade school, I took up the drums with the school band and orchestra. Not long after that, my father bought me my first acoustic guitar as a gift, so I set about teaching myself to play it. In just a few years, my family got a piano, which I of course had to play!

It was only a year or so after beginning piano lessons that I found the true power of music. It was then that I was first exposed to the truth of the Bible. After getting baptized in 1975 at age 16, I began more than ever to appreciate that music can be used to our detriment, or to encourage positive qualities like faith, hope and love.

Over the years since I learned the truth, I have dabbled with music off and on, but never seriously, as it always seemed impossible to do so in this world while seeking the kingdom first. A few years ago, thanks to the encouragement of some of the friends, I began putting whatever musical ability I have to good use by writing songs along theocratic themes; first to encourage my young children in their struggle to maintain integrity in this world, then to entertain and encourage the brotherhood in general.

So here I am in northwest New Jersey, USA, with my wife and three children. I have had many privileges in Jehovah’s service over the years, not the least of which was playing the piano for the Brooklyn Bethel family in the early 1980s. Making these CDs certainly does NOT rank with congregation privileges, working unassigned Territory, or visiting a dear brother or sister in the hospital. But if you’re encouraged by them, it comes pretty close.