| I was born in Kalamazoo,
Michigan Jan. 17 1956. I became overly interested in the guitar after seeing
a very cool and rare single cut, cherry red 1959 Les Paul Special
at hobby day in the 4th grade, I later bought that very guitar!
By the 6th grade, I had my own band "The Second Hand" and performed on
local TV playing "Wipe Out". I was hooked from that point on.
After graduating high school in '74, I was hired by Tom Fetters at Gibson Guitar as a binder. A really nasty job but I never missed a day of work. Less than a year later, Gibson started to cut back the work force and I lost the job of my dreams, along with 700 other Kalamazoans. So after about a year of goofing off at a local repair shop that Tim Shaw and Pat Murphy owned, I was hired at Checker Motors and stayed for the next 13 years, all the while playing guitar in every kind of band you could think of. One band that I had together was with Tim Shaw on bass, Larry Bell on steel, Loring Janes on vocals and Pete Hinman drums called "The Lonestar Statesmen". The line-up changed after Tim went to work for Dan Torres. Tim was replaced by my brother Jay DeHollander on bass. Pete Hinman left and was replaced by Denny Anderson.....This lineup stayed the same for quite a few years with a fair amount of local success. It was a country band and that is where I really found the "Tele pickin" style that I'm known for today. Attending "Scotty's Pedal Steel Guitar Show" in St. Louis every year for 10 years gave me even more of a technical style, country pickin' flare. Years later, after moving to Florida, I had the honor of pickin' with some of the greats. Jimmy Day, Herby Wallace, 'Reece Anderson, Jimmie Crawford, Hal Rugg, Lloyd Green, Herb Remington, Bobbe Seymour, Wally Murphy, and Doug Stock just to name a few. I had the great pleasure of playing and chatting with Jimmy Day and his wife on numerous occasions. What a wonderful couple. Jimmy will be missed and never forgotten! Getting known around Kalamazoo for my guitar styles, I was called for quite a few different kinds of music performances. I was in the Barn Theater's production of HAIR first directed by Brendan R. I started act one with a Jimi Hendrix version of "The Star Spangled Banner".... I believe it ran for about 26 sold out shows! Later, I did " Best Little Whore House in Texas" at Western Michigan University and "Don't Bother Me I Can't Cope" at the Black Civic Theater. There I was reunited with my old friend Mike Crawford. A great drummer I've known since the third grade. I played countless studio sessions at Sound Machine and Crosstown Recording in Kalamazoo and gained tremendous knowledge of studio work by this time. Continue.......  |