Check out all of my music ventures on my YouTube channel.
Remastered audio married to my archival photos and personal stories tell a complete story of the times in which each of these bands were formed and the music was created.
From a young age I was fascinated by the possibility of making music.
I started on a baritone ukulele when I was about 14 years old. There was a short pamphlet showing a few basic chords and some simple tunes.
I practiced those chords for hours and showed some talent for the instrument. My parents noticed, so when I asked to graduate to a guitar, we marched off to the Western Auto all-everything store and purchased a “Truetone” Spanish guitar.
While this plywood box was technically a guitar (6 steel strings!), what players called the “action”, the playability – particularly the height of the strings – was awful. Just 30 minutes of playing would yield bloody fingertips. I tried to file down the “nut” which held the strings, but to no avail.
As an undergraduate at Vanderbilt from 1966-1970, I was engrossed in science as a double major in physics and astronomy. At the same time in history, though, was the Civil Rights Movement, the war in Vietnam; the Space Race and Apollo Program, and then we landed on the moon. Simultaneously, the emergence of Woodstock, and Rock ‘n’ Roll and so forth was all part of the youth movement.
This was the complex stew in which I was living in Nashville.
Nashville Blues Group (NBG)- 1967-1971
From 1967-1971 the Nashville Blues Group would morph and evolve as we gained a wider audience. We went from a typical cover tune dance band with a bit of original work, to a very experimental band playing long, extended improvisation pieces that was the style of the times.
The 1969 NBG Band: Bass Guitar: Mark Gowan | Lead Guitar: Scott Hubbard | Vocals, Harmonica and Rhythm Guitar: Leigh Sealy | Drums: Lew Shiner
The 1971 NBG Band: Scott Hubbard - Lead Guitar and vocals | Mark Gown - Bass, vocals, and harmonica | "Dutch" Mehlenbacher - Drums
Nashville Blues Group
From 1967-1971 the Nashville Blues Group would morph and evolve as we gained a wider audience. We went from a typical cover tune dance band with a bit of original work, to a very experimental band playing long, extended improvisation pieces that was the style of the times.
Pale Fire - 1973
For a few years in the early ‘70s I was a full-time musician in Nashville. I discovered that music was great, but the music business was not. I realized, “Probably rocket science is where my future lies.”
This group of Vanderbilt University graduate students got together most Saturday nights to play in the graduate student lounge. We also found a niche in our community, playing various restaurants and bars, including playing our original music at the now legendary Exit/In.
The Band: Chip Delzell - Drums, Greg Gibson - Trombone, Scott Hubbard - Lead Guitar, Bill Kotsch - Rhythm Guitar, Bob Levenson - Alto Sax and Flute, P.T. McGee - Bass
(Fun Fact: The string quartet playing in the travelogue was the very same featured in the Mitchell Brothers' famous/infamous XXX movie "Behind the Green Door.")
Voyage to the Bottom of the World - 1977
"Voyage to the Bottom of the World", produced by Hayden Productions / San Francisco, was a 24-minute travelogue depicting Prudential Lines' ships transiting the Strait of Magellan.
The film's music was a joint venture of Sam Hall and I. The team had fostered their creative dynamic on a previous project and were ready when Sam got the commission to provide an original soundtrack for the travelogue. I composed and improvised multiple sections to complement Sam’s writing for the string sections.
The Space Rangers
The Space Rangers is my current musical endeavor, comprised of friends and colleagues that I brought together for this CD project and other local gigs.