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VC: I started on piano for about six months when I was maybe 8 or so, but the teacher would hit
and move my hands to get them into the “proper” position, and I hated that. I begged my mom to
let me quit. After our six-month term ended, she let me quit. A little while later I saw someone
playing a tenor saxophone on an after-school sitcom, and I was hooked! My mom graciously let me
rent an alto sax for school band in my 4th grade year and I haven’t put it down in 21 years! I’ve

learned to play all the popular saxes. That includes soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxes, but I
also double on flute and clarinet. Somewhere along the way, I learned a bit of guitar, and I have
been studying piano more seriously over the past few years. I find bass and drums to be very fun
as well, but I don’t tend to play those on any of my records - it’s more for fun. I just like
understanding the role and parts of each instrument. It helps me write in a whole new way and

produce records with more of an objective view.

LL: You graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston. How did your academic
experience at Berklee inform you as a blues musician?

VC: You know, I actually had one of my professors say that I should join a blues band for a year! I

think he meant to help me kind of come out of my shell a bit. I’ve seen him since I kicked off a
career in blues and he told me, “When I said that I didn’t mean for you to make a whole career out
of it!” I find it very funny because I’ve always
loved and been drawn to the blues. I learned my
first 12 bar blues in 6th grade jazz band and I

just loved the fact that I was given a scale, or
three chords, and I could express myself
however I felt. I always carried that forward,
and I loved players that gravitated more
towards the blues side - Cannonball Adderley
being one of them.

Anyway, I didn’t pick up much of the blues side
from Berklee per se, as it wasn’t part of the
curriculum and it wasn’t really talked about,
but I was given an opportunity in my senior
year to tour with Joe Louis Walker. Playing with
JLW, I returned to my love of the blues and that

freedom of expression it brings. It was like
finding your way home again and just realizing
how comfortable it is and how much of your
soul is tied to the place.

Berklee was a fantastic place for me to develop
a thirst for knowledge though, and so many doors are thrown open for you there if you’re looking
for them. I auditioned for Berklee and started my freshman year thinking I wanted to be a jazz
saxophone player and I left with dual degrees in Saxophone Performance (straying pretty far from
the jazz realm) and Music Production & Engineering. I took classes in songwriting, lyric writing,

music business, flute, guitar, piano, harmony, and production from both a player’s perspective and
the engineer/producer/mixing engineer perspective. That is the most valuable thing I got from my
Berklee education - a love of knowledge and understanding, as well as a zoomed-out view of
everybody’s parts in the business and how it all comes together to make everything happen.

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