He was raised on Manitoulin Island, Ontario, spending time with the elder fiddlers in the area. At the age of three he was given a jaw harp and harmonica by his father, and his mother gave him a fiddle and a record of Kentucky fiddle tunes. He has continued to play them all ever since.
As a teenager, he moved to Southern Ontario, where he took up the more ‘urban’ Saxophone, leaving the fiddle in the case for over ten years.
Coupled with a keen interest in drumming, he pursued a career as a percussionist, co-founding the acclaimed Cuban Folkloric ensemble, Klave Y Kongo. In the ten years with Klave Y Kongo, the band hosted many Cuban artists including Eliados Ochoa and Quartetto Patria of Buena Vista Social Club fame. Yet after a while he felt a responsibility to take his Great-Grandfathers fiddle out of the closet and get re-acquainted with the tunes.
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