About Griz

About Bio Equipment The Nickname

About Griz

I've been playing for nearly four decades. My original influences were the Folk music of the '50s and '60s. Later on I got into what we called then The Best Damn Music Ever Made, but now we call Classic Rock. Eventually the musical heritage of those styles led me back to the granddaddy of all popular music, The Blues. My strongest individual influences are Pete Seeger, Jimmy Page, Albert King, B.B. King, and, strangely enough, John Denver. Do NOT say anything bad about John Denver around me. One of the greatest songwriters of our time.

At some point, as many of us do, I began to yearn for the tropical. Not just palm trees and oceans, but the lifestyle. And not just drinking boat drinks in a grass hut, I mean the attitude, the way of looking at things. Not long after this calling grew in me, I discovered my true hero: Jimmy Buffett.

I'd known Jimmy's music forever. I'd played Margaritaville a million times, but when I really figured out what it was about, I realized why Jimmy is my hero. It's really simple:

The man has not worked a day in his life.

Yeah, I know, what he does is hard work. I do some of it myself on a slightly (ha) reduced scale. Okay, he's a Peterbilt and I'm a Tonka, but nevermind that. What I mean...whoever said Matchbox shutup...what I mean is that the man has, every step of the way in his life, simply done whatever he wanted to do. He wanted to go to Nashville and he did. Nashville chewed him up and spit him out. He wanted to go to Key West and he did, and became a fixture there. He wanted to buy a sailboat and he did with his first big royalty check from Come Monday.

The rest of us, most of us, well me, for instance, when I say "work", I mean something I don't really want to do. Because if it's not work it's play, and play is something I do want to do. Most of us work so we can play. Many of us get to a certain point in our lives and realize we wish we'd played more.

Jimmy Buffett will not lay on his deathbed and wish he'd played more.

That's why he's my hero, and that's why I do what I do. I'm ready to play more. How about you?