Born in
Rock Island, Illinois, He played in the Carlisle Dance Orchestra during the 1920s. From 1928 until 1931, he was a staff musician for radio station WHO in
Des Moines, Iowa. He stopped playing banjo about the time the station was sold. In a later interview he said that he had become unhappy with the banjo's having been displaced in music by the guitar and the bass, until it became a "taxi-driver's instrument." He left music in 1931, but began playing again in 1961. He sat in with several bands during a brief stay in
New York City, then played gigs in
Moline, Illinois from the fall of 1963. While recovering in a Rock Island hospital from injuries sustained in an
automobile accident, he suffered a fatal
heart attack and died on November 18, 1965. ==References==