My Music

 

Playing for the 2004 recording of our Christmas CD - "Sunset Country Christmas Treasures"

Here are the samples  of the songs I played on.

 Christmas Time's A Comin' - Lawrence Russell

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - Neil Moody

Here I am at 16. Took second place in the Atikokan Fiddle Contest for 16 & under.

 My love for music started very young. My dad, Neil Moody, played the guitar and

sang. I would always get involved with musicals and play at my old public school,

Sprucedale. Usually playing one of the lead roles I gained lots of confidence to stand

up in front of crowds. I started learning on the guitar at about the age of 8 and then

enrolled in lessons with none else than Ken Denby. I was there for one term and used

my good ear instead of learning to read the music. I still can't read music, all of my

music ability is listening to the songs and playing them over and over. Around the age

of 12, after learning quite a bit on the guitar I became inspired to play the "fiddle" at

camp one weekend when Mel and Sarah Auren came over for a "jam" session with

us. The things Mel could make that fiddle do, made me want to play one. He let me

squeeeek a couple of notes out of it and that was all it took for me to want one. My

uncle, Ray Moody, had an old beater kicking around that he gave to me and I started

to practise. It sounded like an old tin can but I learned a few tunes and thought I was

getting pretty good while I played along with old fiddle records. Dad and I would get

together and jam with either Mel Auren or Bob Oversby, or both. We had a lot of

good times and learned quite a lot from these guys. At the age of around 16, Lorrainne

Malyk got ahold of Louie Haukeness, and Myself to play at Eaton-Rugby Hall. Lorraine

on vocals and rhythm guitar, Louie on vocals and bass, myself on lead guitar and fiddle,

"Country Friends" became our name. We played at smaller functions, got noticed and

gained Tom Stratton, on lead/rhythm guitar, along with Rick Smith on drums/vocals.

Later Louie retired, we picked up Everett Rourke as our bass player and Colleen Nicoll

harmony vocals. We played all over Dryden, almost every weekend starting from the

August Fall Fair until around March. After about three years of playing and running back

and forth to trade school in Thunder Bay, I packed in the band life, though it was one of the

greatest musical experiences of my life. The band continued on and became "Cross Road

Country". In 1993 I got married to my wonderful wife Susan, now we have two great boys,

Ben(7), and Will(3). I jam once and a while with dad, my nephew Brendan McDonald,

Ken and Jeannette Denby, who are inspiring Brendan to be better than ourselves. Now my

love is my family, "Ham" radio, and playing around with computers. I'm honoured to  

have been asked to play on the "Sunset Country Christmas Treasures" album.