Joe was born and raised in a middle class section of Brooklyn, NY, called Marine Park. He’s done the best he can to bury his Brooklyn accent but it still slips out sometimes when he’s telling a joke. Joe studied Classical and Jazz guitar from the age of 8 and studied music at several colleges. Joe’s private musical education went well beyond his college education. His guitar mentor was Sid Margolis, who played in the big band era with Frankie Carle and Benny Goodman among others and was staff guitarist at several New York TV studios in the 50's and 60's. Another favorite teacher of his was Albert Valdez Blaine, a highly accomplished Classical guitarist who's trained many studio guitarists and studied with Andes Segovia. During his college years Joe played guitar in the NY wedding circuit and later with Paul Cohen, first trumpeter with the Count Basie Orchestra which led to a gig with the Count himself. Joe has played bass with many country bands in the tri-state area and briefly in Tennessee. While still very young he and some of and his friends put together a Country, Rock & Pop band called “Harry Crash and Thr33 Fingers Whiskey”. As Joe puts it, "The band needed a bass player but neither of the other two guitarists wanted to play bass. That's when I decided to surprise the guys, I bought a bass and showed up to a rehearsal. Though I've learned a lot about the instrument over the years, I was able to play it from the first time I picked it up, and the second time I picked it up was on a gig. I must have done something right because no one has ever asked me to leave a group and I'm still as busy as ever"