My Name is

My Name Is Corn Cobb

With a nickname like "Corn Cobb", you would expect there to be a cool story concerning how I got it, but the truth is a disappointing letdown. So I have several interesting lies that are better stories anyway.

But, the best stories I tell, are the ones explaining how my songs came about. My songs are basically snapshots of what I feel or what I'm thinking on a given day, or maybe even just a moment. They come from people I know, and things I see, and real experiences from everyday life. I think that's why people connect them to their own everyday life. Because, if you listen closely, you will soon realize that what my songs are, is my life, made to rhyme and set to music.

I started playing music in '76, when I was 10 years old. I thought playing drums in the grade school band was the coolest thing in the world, until I turned 12 and discovered my dad's old guitar. But, I stayed in the high school band for 7 years. It was there I learned the rules of music and met my oldest friend, my most frequent songwriting collaborator, and my keyboard player: Wayne Holstein. We've been playing music together for 25 years and I hope we always will.

I joined my first rock band, "REBEL", when I was 15. When we played our first gig, I was hooked. I formed "The White Lightning Band" in '84 and I've played music somewhere, with somebody practically every weekend since then. In '86 I joined "Steve Mullens and the Southern Sound", a country group which opened for Ronnie McDowell, at the Capitol Plaza Theater, in Charleston, WV. After that I played in "Foxtrap" and "The Smoky river Band", until in '88 I formed the "hardest to kill" band I ever saw, "Diamondback".

In '90 I moved to Greensboro, NC with bassist Steve Breedlove and we immediately began a songwriting partnership that lasts even today. We recruited our old friend Jeff Smith and formed the tightest band I was ever exposed to, "Gypsy Leather". We won numerous "Battles of the Bands" and was runner-up in a national Blues Contest. Steve is now the bass player for Rockin Horse.

In '91, I moved back to WV and soon reassembled "Diamondback". By '93 "Diamondback" had fallen apart and for the first time I didn't look for another band to join. I took my acoustic guitar and started playing solo around Charleston. At that time I started playing 5 - 6 nights a week and still do, most of the time. One night a girl with a guitar walked in, and asked if she could play a few songs. Thus began one of my most favorite musical partnerships. Her name is Jean Hanna Davis. She and I and virtuoso violinist Stan Bumgardner teamed up with many different musicians in a myriad of different combos and played many gigs together, as we still do. Stan is now part of Rockin Horse and we're glad to have him.

I soon felt the need to play screaming electric guitar again, and so I joined a funky R&B outfit from Beckley called "The Red Starr Rockets". The highlight of that whole period was when the RSR opened for Delbert McClinton at the '93 Sternwheel Regatta.

In '94, Diamondback was reincarnated when I joined forces with my still current drummer Tommy Hymes and the only bass player Diamondback ever had, my old friend Butch Moles. I continued playing solo during the week and with the band on the weekend. In '99, some old friends rejoined us and we changed our name to "Rockin Horse".