Started playing guitar at 13 after my dad showed me some basics. He was a pretty good picker and also taught me my first "picking song" the Wildwood Flower. I grew up playing country, rock, and blues. While attending Louisiana Tech University, I Emmylou Harris when Ricky Skaggs was in her band and I got real interested in the Mandolin and years later, I began to learn it. My dad also had an old mandolin with a cracked front on it from the 20's that he played around on a bit. It had been his Uncles at one time. I got more interested in Bluegrass and Old Time music. All my life I had liked the fiddle but figured it was too hard to learn. I knew that learning the mandolin would make it easier to play the fiddle because the fingering is the same, but the mandolin has frets and the fiddle doesn't. Many years later I taught myself the fiddle and now it is my favorite thing to play. I have even built 2 violins or fiddles (the only difference is how you play them) I heard someone say a fiddle is just a violin with an attitude. I mostly play at Bluegrass Festivals, Jamms, and I like to play with my family at home or at gatherings. My brother in law, Larry Barrett, my boys Joe Junior and Nick all play guitar. When we get together we play almost any style, blues, country, some stuff by the Eagles, etc. and bluegrass. My wife, Renee, plays the piano and is more in to playing stuff like Fur Elise and some Eagles stuff. I record on a Roland 880-EX and play a Martin D-28 guitar into some shure mics. My mandolin is a F style Washburn and my fiddle is...well thats a tough one because I own 10 or so. I really like the old ones. I have a few that are around 100 years old and sound really sweet. Oh, and of coarse the ones I make sound awesome. They all have a personality of their own. I hope that I'll see you at a Bluegrass Jam.