Bio
Terry was raised in a musical home in Southern California. His father Ralph and Ralph’s two brothers had a popular country/novelty band back in the thirties, called the “Sherven Brothers Rodeoliers”, and even made a movie with Gene Autry titled “Home on the Prairie”, which can be easily viewed on YouTube. Unfortunately, they were black balled by the musician’s union in California, and the band broke up.
When Terry was growing up his father wrote songs, and his mother, Helen and Ralph would sing them together. Terry loved to join in, and learned to sing harmony at a young age. It was at this time that he and his older sister, Judith, began piano lessons. They both became quite accomplished in short order.
In junior high school Terry played piano in a dixieland band called the “Basin Street Six”. One of the members later became the lead singer for the “Turtles”.
In high school Terry created a Rock’n’ Roll band, “Terry and the Pirates”, singing lead and playing an electric piano. They played numerous venues in Southern California, and found a niche providing dance music for many fraternities and sororities at UCLA, USC and other universities.
While attending UCLA, Terry taught himself the guitar on a 1959 Martin D28 that was given to him by his father. It happens to be the guitar he plays on “fathersonbrotherfriend”.
After college he bounced around California living the hippie life, street singing with his guitar and busking with two close mates who became life long friends, Bob Marron and Lou Fasulo.
The thread of music continued for Terry through marriage to his wife Evey, raising their son, Josh, and daughter, Erin, and a 30 year career in education with his final years as a high school principal in North Idaho. Throughout this chapter he performed for students, wrote school Alma Maters, and occasionally taught guitar.
Terry turned to his music full time in retirement while seasonally working in Talkeetna, Alaska in 2005. He began performing in the local pubs and bars and soon realized people, young and old, loved his singing, guitar playing, song choices and arrangements.
This continued when he and Evey spent the next two summers in Ennis, Ireland. He performed regularly in the pubs, busked on the streets, and came to be known to the Irish as, “American Terry”.
Four years later, in North Idaho, Terry met up with two long time friends and fabulous musicians who are featured on “fathersonbrotherfriend”, Wayne Rau, mandolinist, and Gary Lawrence, bassist. Along with his son, Josh, on djembe, they performed regularly together, laying the foundation for “fathersonbrotherfriend”.
Terry had envisioned an album of originals written by his father, his son, and himself for quite awhile, but it started to become a reality when he met Dave Sims, owner and recording engineer at Quadrocker Studio in Dalton Gardens, Idaho, in 2018.
After brainstorming with Dave, a demo of the 10 songs was recorded solo. Copies were made and given to all the people Terry wanted to contribute to the final project. When everyone had had enough time to become familiar with the songs, recording began. As you can hear on the album, magic happened in that studio. Everyone bought in fully, and the bonds and friendships ran deep.
Dave did a masterful job tirelessly mixing each song. Two years later, when the mixing was completed, the files were sent to Jerry Tubb at Terra Nova Mastering Studio in Austin, Texas. As only Jerry can, he put the final polish on everything.
These days, Terry and Evey live in Eureka, Montana where he performs regularly in local venues, especially Trappers Saloon, way up by the Canadian border.