Like a seed that is filled with all the potential of being a sun-tickling tree, my story is no different. It marks a similar thought. So, come close and I will tell you my story, my personal passions story.

It was the summer born of 1967 which made me 7. I huddled in a South Los Angeles storefront church and I remember hearing my mom deliver a soulful rendition of “Amazing Grace” before a Sunday morning congregation. I sat on the edge my pew and saw parishioners fanning unsuccessfully from the heat. I listened to her sing and everyone listened to the ringing of my mother singing. This is where my love affair with music began.

One year later, my mom introduced me a to short and polite lady who lived around the corner from my house. She was the neighborhood piano teacher, who later became my guitar teacher. Her house was heavily decorated with trinkets and figurines of all sorts. She also, had a housedog that would plant himself near my feet as I worked the piano pedals during my lesson.

As I grew up into this happy young man, I developed an appreciation for public speaking, which led me to deliver the graduation speech for my junior high school class. I found this to be in parallel to my mother singing to the Sunday congregation years ago, except I was exhorting a classmate congregation to “reach for the stars” and “become anything you want”. I wish I could say I practiced what I preached, cause I didn’t. Instead, in the years following, I followed a path that was safe and comfortable. I just got a job. I felt fearful that if I really pursued my music dreams with all my heart, I would end up living out of a beat up van, eating mayonaise sandwiches and corn nuts. Fear can be the greatest enemy of all. It has great paralyzing power, if you let it.

Though I continued to practice and perform music for many years in groups and as a soloist and backing up well-known artists, it was only when I decided to create Personal Passions, that I really felt free -- free to launch my own record company and release my first CD of original compositions. Career-wise, there has been nothing more thrilling than creating music from nothing and being able to present this something, called Personal Passions.

The ultimate, of course, is hearing the wonderful comments and seeing the smiling faces of my fans enjoying the music that was both personal and passionate...My story.