Along with my interest in studying the possibility of life elsewhere in the Universe, I brought my Gibson Firebird III guitar and the strong desire to continue playing. I was, of course, aware that Nashville billed itself as "Music City, USA", but did not yet imagine how much that connection would mean.

While there were a few people on my dorm floor interested in music, it took a bit for me to find other players. By my sophomore year I had met Mark Gowan, who had played guitar in a high school band. I also met Lew Shiner, a drummer who was also part of the percussion section of the University band.

As a result of this connection, Lew had a key to the Joint University Band Building, an old structure right across from the DEKE (Delta Kappa Epsilon) Fraternity House (more about the DKE's later). The hall was largely vacant at night. A perfect place for a new group to rehearse.

Mark, Lew and I started with just a jam session. Mark decided to switch to playing bass so that we could have a full band sound (and he said I was clearly the lead guitar layer). Rounding out this group was Leigh Sealy, who was studying theater and aspiring to be an actor. He had a decent singing voice and could play rhythm guitar, too.

This group was the Nashville Blues Group because of our interest in that music, although we played dance favorites for a variety of parties.

From about 1967/68 onward the NBG would morph, evolve and gain a wider audience. Dutch Mehlenbacher joined us later on drums.

If you visit my YouTube channel you can see and, most importantly, hear, how we went from a typical cover tune dance band in with a bit of original work to a very experimental band playing long extended improvisation pieces that was the style of the times.