Bio

Chris was born and raised in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa a small town in the southeast corner of Iowa. His father was an accomplished jazz musician who played trombone, drums and vibes professionally in jazz bands in the Midwest for many years. Chris had a half sister, Susan, who was 10 years older than he who played guitar and was also among his big early influences. Susan would often would play Dylan, Neil Young, and Peter, Paul and Mary on a 1969 Gibson Blue Ridge guitar much to Chris's delight and intrigue. Chris began his music as he picked up a tenor guitar in the early 70's at age 15. His father taught him a few chords and Chris took off from there, learning everything he could from anyone he met who played guitar and he began writing music almost instantly. Susan died a tragic death in 1979 and it is her prized 1969 Gibson Blue Ridge acoustic guitar that is Chris's main axe today.

Today Chris lives in Chandler, Arizona, is a middle school music teacher and continues to write music and perform. Chris is widely known among local musicians in the Phoenix area due to a website he founded in 2002 and www.azopenmic.com  continues to provide the most comprehensive information available on the open mic scene in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Chris also hosts an open mic at a popular coffee shop in downtown Mesa, Arizona called Coffee Talk.

Chris's performs many of his original tunes at gigs as well as classic rock and acoustic rock from the last 30 years. His style is said to be "folk rock with a humorous edge". Chris performs solo or in an acoustic group called "Chris and the Steves" (yes, the other 3 in the group are all named Steve) and lately has been doing a jazz duo with his father at various venues. Chris also performs casual professional engagements, sitting in with various musicians and bands in a variety of styles.

Chris's current love and main focus is on his songwriting where he has been seeing his skills develop and get recognized of late.

October 2005, Chris received the honor of being named Finalist by the Song of the Year (http://www.songoftheyear.com/ ) songwriting contest. Song of the Year is an international songwriting contest supporting VH-1’s Save the Music Foundation. The Song of the Year judges are some of the biggest names in music including many Grammy Award winners.