I was born into a musical family in Cambridge Massachusetts in 1956. The son of blues singer June Ward and boogie woogie piano player Johnny Ward, I started playing drums when I was three. By the age of seven, I had played behind some of the finest musicians in the world at the almost weekly house parties at our Cambridge home. Often after a gig, my parents would bring half of the nightclub home with them for these legendary parties. Many A list musicians would stop by knowing something would be going on. It was there that my love for music was born.

By the age of eleven my father bought me my first guitar. At age fifteen I was at home blasting my favorite album on the stereo (Layla-Derick and the Domino's) Duane Allman and Eric Clapton playing Bell Bottom Blues and me playing along with my guitar on TEN. When my father walked in and gave me a dose of his wisdom "Son, It's not what you play...it's what you leave out!" A piece of advice that would shape my guitar style for the rest of my life.

For many years I would play clubs around New England with such notable performers as Silas Hubbard Jr, Weepin' Willie Robinson, Sweet Roy Jones and K D Bell just to name a few. In the late eighties, long time friend Bill Walsh and I formed the popular New England band "Five Guys Named Moe".

For the last ten years I have been extremely fortunate. As a member of the legendary West Side Chicago Bluesman Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson's band "The Magic Rockers" I have toured the world and played behind most of the major blues artists in the world. What stuck in my mind the most is the very first thing Luther said to me as a Magic Rocker. "Don't ever play anything like someone else plays it...EVER!!!"

For many years now I have been developing my own sound.
Soon I will be recording my first CD. Its been a long time coming and I hope it's worth the wait.

See you at the next gig.

Big Jack


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