I grew up in Pittsburgh, and moved to San Francisco after I got out of school. Somehow I got hooked on "that sound" from old Hank Williams and new Flying Burrito Brothers records, and started playing steel in the early 70's. I became a father and went through an ugly divorce.

In 1978 I married the current Mrs. Lee and moved north to Sonoma County, California, because it was a better place to raise our four daughters. I gave up trying to play steel "for a living" in 1980 and went to work building amps for Mesa/Boogie. While slaving away in the Boogie factory, I taught myself computer programming and became a modem hobbiest. In 1985 I got my first programming job, which included running a BBS for the users of our software. I hacked together my own BBS program (called b0badel), and ran a single-line system out of my house, interfacing with Usenet newsgroups via a server in Atlanta.

My first web site went up in May of 1995. At the time there were only 3 or 4 steel guitar sites, and I think Brad's Page Of Steel is the only other one that has survived from that time. I added an interactive Forum to the site in late December, 1996. It was successful far beyond my expectations - I was just fooling around!

I didn't grow up listening to steel guitar or country music - it wasn't popular around Pittsburgh. Discovering Hank Williams, Bob Wills and the wealth of material that is "authentic country music" was a major turning point in my life. I know that most steel guitarists grew up listening to the stuff, but I wonder how many, like me, didn't even hear Hank until they were old enough to drink...

Software Engineer, System Administrator, Mail Order Entrepreneur

Steel Guitar, Marimba, Songwriting (instrumentals, mostly)