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.
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