He played little music after college until he moved to Kingston in 1976. There he came across an upright bass that revived his desire to be a folk musician. Playing music with local groups like the Hassle Family Band soon followed. Though a bass player, he eventually came to love the mandolin, spending two years taking lessons from Las Cruces mandolin player, Steve Smith. I practiced religiously for one hour every night until I could play a standard repertoire of old-time fiddle tunes, but, to go to the next level, I would have to practice three hours every night.
Life is too short.
He began thinking about instrument making in the late 1980s when his Mark Taylor, a rosewood mandolin once used by the Tom T. Hall Band, needed to be sent out for some repairs. They said it'd take one month, but it took six months and the cost was high. He started fixing, then customizing his own instruments. By 1990, he had finished his first instrument from scratch, built from a 1921 blueprint he'd found for a Gibson A-Model mandolin. Two years later, he entered a master apprenticeship program with fiddle-maker Bob Crawford of Williamsburg.