In 1976 I was hired as a day care center instructor in New York City. Because I played the guitar, I began accompanying the more experienced teachers as they led singing during “group time.” Soon I not only knew lots of early childhood tunes, but I also tapped into my collection of simple folk tunes to add to our group time.
We moved to Danbury, CT, in 1977, and I got a daily gig teaching music at a nursery school. We became such good singers, I was asked to create a children’s television show at the local TV station. We named it “The Rickety Bridge” after a song I had written, and I sought to host a show with children guests, stories, songs, and interesting items to show. At first I tried to read children’s books on the air, but we couldn’t make them look right, so I began telling some of the stories I’d learned while teaching as well as others from my own childhood, story-telling groups, and children’s books.
I connected with an excellent musician, Judith Cook Tucker, and we developed a repertoire of songs and began doing concerts at area schools and created a summer Children’s Music Workshop. I spent most of my days learning songs, stories, and practicing guitar.
Just about the time I was thinking I could make a meager living as a folksinger and storyteller, I was offered a job as Chaplain at Western Connecticut State University. My music and storytelling career took a backseat to ministry and eventually counseling–saving my family from being dependent on a “starving artist.”
But I didn’t give up. Instead, I began to integrate music and storytelling into my professional work. When someone asks me for advice, I often reply, “I don’t know, but I’ll tell you a story.” I often quote lyrics from songs when they feel appropriate for the situation. I begin almost all of my classes with a story or song. And you’ll notice that most chapters of my books are actually stories.
Moving to Memphis in 1985 I introduced myself to churches as a pastoral counselor by offering Wednesday night church programs of songs and stories. And I always found time to do concerts with the Arts Council’s programs or other invitations.
In 1994 my wife bought me a hammer dulcimer for our 16th wedding anniversary–an instrument I had longed to own for years. I practiced it like I had my guitar in the late 1970s, until I could take it with me to gigs. It also re-energized my creative juices for about 10 years.
Just as I thought I’d lost that enthusiasm again, I visited my brother-in-law, John Penn, in Orlando, FL, where he recorded me playing and singing three songs. Suddenly I understood why some musicians love the creativity inherent in recording. Introduced to a sound technician intern, Alex Dolphin, I drove to Nashville and recorded 17 songs and stories in one weekend, which became my first album for very young children (“Howjado?”). Now I had the bug. A year later I began work on a second album for older children and not yet fully grown adults: “Not Yet Growed Up.” That finished, I’ll soon begin work on a third filled with songs and stories for seekers.