John was born in Guelph, Ontario in November, 1954, the oldest of four kids. After living near Oshawa for a few years, the family moved to the north end of Winnipeg in the early sixties. Shortly thereafter, John began taking guitar lessons at a local accordion studio. John played in a number of different rock bands in Winnipeg during the early seventies and attended the University of Winnipeg receiving a B.A. Hons, a four year program with a major in History. While going to university John began to perform as a solo singer/songwriter and wrote a large number of songs, (most of them very bad). While at the university John worked on the weekly student newspaper eventually editing the paper. In 1978, John moved to Vancouver to take a job with a union editing a newspaper. John worked for the union, which became the CAW,(now Unifor) for thirty years.
John has been married to Diane for over thirty years and has three sons, Daniel, Cameron and Mitchell, who are all living in the Vancouver area. In the fall of 2007 John and Diane moved to Ottawa in order for John to take a different job with a federal government board. Since the original move to Vancouver in 1978, John had not been able to put much time into music due to work and family priorities. After the move to Ottawa, and some exposure to the music scene there through attending some house concerts, John decided to resume writing songs and performing. Playing mostly at open stages, John was able to get important feedback about his songs, which has influenced the choice of material on his CD.
John and Diane have moved back to Vancouver, and a second CD, “Alone on a Saturday Night” – which was recorded in both Vancouver and Ottawa – was released late in 2013. This was followed by “Tourist Town” in 2016 and “Love, Grace and Gratitude” in 2019. His latest album, “Fast Track for a Slow Horse” came out in 2023. Now freed from regular employment, John is writing more songs, playing more often at various venues in the Greater Vancouver area, (primarily Farmer’s Markets and music listening venues), and working harder on learning the craft of songwriting, including working more with other songwriters.