Bio
My passion for music must be a deep seem in my blood. It seems as if I've played, sung, and written music nearly my entire life. It's almost as if I don't have memories that don't include notes.
My mother, Desiree, played and taught piano. Her practice routines and arrangements filled our home daily with Broadway hits and sing along songs like, "Won't You Come Home, Bill Baily?" I smile even now as I remember those days.
My Grandmother Helen played piano and learned ragtime style in St Louis at a Ragtime Conservancy downtown around 1910 or so. She played "Maple Leaf Rag" and other Scott Joplin compositions most delicately nuanced and with graceful syncopation.
My Aunt Jane played a Barrel-House style of piano that was broad, loud, and proud. When she sat down to play the house veritably rocked in time with her left hand.
My dad told me that his Grandfather played the fiddle, but he grew deaf late in his years. That fiddle was stored deep in our basement for so many years until I literally unearthed it behind the old coal furnace. As I held it I seemed to hear barn dance music leap from it's musty sound hole. My dad told the story that after Great Grand Dad grew deaf he supposedly tuned the fiddle by biting the leg of the family piano to get the vibrations for the tuning. That, in itself, qualifies for passion...
My first guitar was an old Spanish guitar that my mother gave me. The action of the strings on the neck was so high that I was forced to use it as a bass guitar. My big brother, Norman, built me a homemade amplifier and put a pickup in the sound hole of the guitar. With the help of a "Learn to Play the Ventures' Songs" LP that my brother also bought for me, I was on my way.
Along the way and down many musical roads and side streets I sang in choirs at church, performed in musicals at school and in theaters. I've been very fortunate to have played with some of the best musicians in St Louis. I traveled the country with a group of really great musicians including Vince Gill in a bluegrass/swing band, sung in a southern Gospel quartet, and won a songwriting contest or two. However, I've always needed to balance my creative projects with my business aptitudes and commitments. I built a decent career where commitments to my wife and children's health and happiness could be kept. We lived happily and blessed. But the music remains.
I've felt the deeply rooted tug of rivers, mountains, and oceans in my life as well. Diane, my wife, and I live on the road full time now in a 2005 Allegro Bay motor home where we launch our hiking, kayaking, and natural world immersion adventures. We no longer even own a home so our we are finally free to be...what and who we want to be. We can experience the Lord's splendid creation first-hand every day. The inspiration we receive from discovering new landscapes, both subtle and grand, from sharing experiences with new and old friends alike, and from capturing notes and songs with fellow musicians, carries us through the miles with endless smiles.
After much urging from friends and family, I am putting our experiences on line. Within my website I am including my music, a travel blog, and pictures that Diane and I have taken of the fabulous locations we encounter. We hope that by sharing these you might find a little inspiration of your own...a song you like, a picture that makes you want to get outside, or perhaps some locations of great campsites and locations where you can find some peace.
Above all, we wish you a creative life where you can become who you want to be.
John Jump
