The Bop-Teens When I was about 12 years old, my brother Keith McDowell and I formed a pop group with several other individuals, some of whom lived on our street with us. We used to play at the Center Theatre in High Point on Saturday mornings at the Talent Round Up Show. It was a 30 minute program that was broadcast on the local WMFR radio station in High Point. As thanks for the performing, each time we performed we got a free one month pass to the theatre for any movie that was showing. Needless to say, during those early years, I went to a lot of movies free because we'd try to play at least once a month. We actually had a "professional" glossy picture made of the group. Here I am about 12 years old. Brother Keith is holding the electric guitar on the bottom right of the picture. |
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The Ambassadors Somewhere around my junior high school years, my brother and I met up with a young man named Larry Head. For some reason, our parents let us go with Larry to the all night gospel singings around the High Point area. This was during the stime of the original Blackwood Brothers with JD Sumner, The Statesmen, The Blue Ridge Boys, etc. Later, we formed with Buddy Sale and pianist Joe Walker a "men's quartet." My brother dropped out shortly thereafter and we remained singing as a trio for several years. We performed in churches in the area and made a 33 1/3 rpm album that I still have. I sang the baritone. It was a great way to get my gospel music roots. |
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The Crestwoods Around my Sophomore year in high school, my brother Keith, once again, got me interested in Peter, Paul, and Mary. I learned to finger pick the acoustic guitar and shortly thereafter formed a folk trio we called The Back of the Bus Four - there was a fourth person for a period of time but he graduated. We formed from members of the Green Street Baptist Church Choir that had gone on tour and illness of a tenor prompted us to work out songs on the back of the bus getting to the churches. One of our first songs was "Greenfields" by the Brothers Four. We played for about two years and added Roger Taylor as a second guitarist and Bob Cummings on the bass. We had an adult male sponsor/manager and recorded two 45 rpms that we sold at our events around High Point. We were offered to play an entire summer gig at a resort near Hound Ears, NC, but the original three of us needed money to start college and we turned it down. We always wonder, "what if ..." David Austic and Curtis Collins were my two best friends in the trio. |
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The Foresters After high school, I entered Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. I had met George Grove during my senior year in high school. He was a year behind me; but, by the time I was a Sophomore, George had enrolled at Wake Forest. Shortly thereafter during my junior year, we formed a folk group with Grady Eggers on bass and Pat Brown on vocals. Obviously, we had the perfect format to play all those PP&M songs I had learned in high school. We auditioned for and were selected to go the Germany in the summer of 1967 under the auspices of the USO with the military and sing for 8 weeks for the servicemen. We were gone about 60 days but we performed 72 concerts in 50 of those days; Tuesdays were a day off. The last several weeks of our summer adventure, we performed two concerts a day, hence the total of 72. That was a fun experience. We play during my senior year 1967-68 and then basically disbanded as Grady, Pat, and I graduated and started our careers. |
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Winterwood After graduating from Wake Forest, I began a teaching career in the Wake County Public School System, Raleigh, NC. I taught for 11 years and then transitioned to an administrative postive in the central office. However, during my high school teaching years in 1972-74, I worked together with two of my students Glynn Rose and Jane Moon performing folk rock music. I had helped Glynn with some finger-picking patterns and taught them both the old folk and folk rock songs. Occasionally, my friend Grady Eggers from college days would come down and join us on bass and sometimes we had a drummer Kim Brookshire. We played around Raleigh at the Frog and Nightgown and other special activities, which included one at the Governor's Mansion. At the end of 1974, Glynn and Jane graduated and it wasn't possible to keep the group going; besides, my wife and I were starting a family in 1975 as well. Priorities changed. |
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Night Life Not long after Winterwood shut down, I got back up with my friend Grady Eggers and Jane Moon from Winterwood and Kim Brookshire, who had occasionally played drums with Winterwood, and Bob Smith. Grady was the band director at Reynolds High School in Winston-Salem and Bob was the choral director. Kim was a student under Grady. We formed a rock band called Night Life and from about 1975-1982 we performed in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. During those years we played many jobs up at Hound Ears in the mountains of North Carolina. Funny how things circle around; 10 years earlier the high school folk group had auditioned there. During those years, Grady moved to Boone, NC and along the way, we lost Bob to a heart attack and picked up another pianist. We played a lot of jobs. But, around 1980-82, I was back in school at Duke working on my Doctorate in Education and our son was 5 years old and our daughter was 6 1/2. Driving to Boone at Hound Ears for a 9 pm - 1 am job at Hound Ears on Saturday night and then driving back home for church with the family on Sunday mornings just got too taxing for my body and I stopped my work with Night Life. But, we all remained great friends. |
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Vision Unlimited It appears that I wasn't through with my gospel routes. Around 1982, I got back together with Jane Moon McKinney from Winterwood and Night Life and her husband Joe McKinney and we formed a gospel trio. We purchased and created tracks to sing with. We even went to a "major studio" and recorded an album that we produced only in cassette form. The picture included here comes from that cassette. We managed to sing around the Greensboro area for several years before they moved to Texas and of course that was the end of the trio. What next? |
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Carol and Jerry In the latter part of the 1980s, through a former band member I had worked with in the early 1970s, I met Carol Karshenas. She was a talented vocalist and pianist. We decided to form a duo and we created our own background tracks. I started learning MIDI technology and how to voice various instruments to create the tracks that were played through a Sony MIDI recorder/player. Carol and I played around the area until the mid 1990s and enjoyed our time together. The duo came to an end in the year 1995 when my 18-year-old daughter Susan died and lots of things changed. You see her picture in the upper left corner of the banner across the top of this web page. |
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Contemporary Church Music, The Caroling Party, and Colossal Nerve About the same time my daughter died in 1995, I started being the director of contemporary music at Saint Andrews Presbyterian Church in Raleigh while still working fulltime as an administrator in the Wake County Public School Systme. In 2000, the church split over issues regarding contemporary music and Presybtery of NC. I went with the contemporary split off which contained around 1200 members. My time there lasted until 2007 and I decided I needed a break. However, in 2011, I rejoined a third church which broke off from the second and ran with the contemporary music with a super friend for about 5 years. So much happened in all those years I've just chosen one picture of the band taken from a summer concert we did. I'm in the middle with a special person hugging my neck. I'll come back to her below. |
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The JFG Trio Somewhere in the 2005-2010 timeframe, I started playing electric bass with Julie Florin on the keys and husband Greg Florin on drums. We were just looking for something a little different. Julie was the original pianist with my contemporary church band and we have known each other since 1994. She had many musical and theatrical contacts having worked with NC State and other local theatrical productions. I even sat in on acoustic guitar for "Biggest Little Whorehouse in Texas" and for "Grease"; and I transcribed a number of scores for her to use with her work. We had fun for a few years doing some trio work. |
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Blair and Jerry Around 1997, a friend a church came up to me suggesting that I audition a young lady named Blair Dougher for a vocal position in the contemporary church band. She said she had a great voice - wow, did she ever. She joined the band and sang with me in all three of the different churches with the contemporary band and together we led the band in the third church. Around 2007, this same friend who had introduced Blair to me was getting married and asked Blair to sing "Over the Rainbow" for her outdoor wedding. Blair came over to the house and I listened to Eva Cassidy's version and it fit my style perfectly. Our friend's wedding was the first time we sang together as a duet. We put together a repertoire and began playing a wine cellars, country clubs, private parties, etc. We still occasionally play for special events. She's now married with two young, beautiful daughters, so her priorities have changed. But, I still enjoy making music with her. |
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The Carolina Moondogs It seems like 8-10 years ago, my good friend Terry Blalock asked me to sit in with is big band The Carolina Moondogs. I was playing in electric guitar and singing lead and backup vocals. About two years ago, the regular electric guitarist decided to retire. Terry called and invited me to join the band full time. I was honored to join them; there are some really great musicians in this band. Over the past several years, the band has become more pop, rock, Motown, and beach music rather than big band style. That actually fits my skills better. The outdoor picture was taken at a gig up near Martinsville, VA a few years ago. The other picture was taken at a wedding reception near Southern Pines in an old, but very nice barn. I'm playing my red, Fender Stratocaster these days with the band. It's a lot of fun and I still enjoy performing. |
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The Folk Legacy Trio Remember my good friend George Grove who play in The Foresters during college in the 1960s? Well, we circle around again. George played for The Kingston Trio for 41 years until 2017. Legal issues over the copyright of the name "Kingston Trio" required he and the tenor Rick Dougherty to form a new group called The Folk Legacy Trio. And wouldn't you know it, our old college double bass player Grady Eggers started playing bass for them. I kept telling George that if he ever needed a bass player, please let me know. A series of events happened last June 2023 where I had to fill in for Grady in a concert in Richmond, VA. Later in October 2023, Grady played the part of a 22 concert tour and I played the last 9 concerts. That was 15 days, 6 states and 9 concerts. It was a dream of a lifetime. Here's a picture from tour with me on my acoustic bass guitar during concert with them. I hope to get back out again with them when it fits their schedule. Folk and folk rock music have always been my forte so this is indeed fun. |
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