I've lived and worked in Muscle Shoals, Los Angeles, Nashville and Seattle, which is now home. I've enjoyed a wide variety of jobs and interest in these locations. Here's the short story.

My first career was in music in Muscle Shoals. I had a record with RCA while I was still in high school, produced by the renowned Chet Atkins. It wasn’t a hit nationally but I got me noticed locally. I joined a southern blues/rock band called the Mark V - named after the Lincoln automobile for some reason - when I was just out of high school. We did college frat parties and NCO military club dates around the South. About that time Muscle Shoals spawned its first recording studio called FAME. Members of the Mark V were willing and available to provide backing music for some talented artist, looking for a laid-back, casual environment to make their records - the rest is history as they say. I went on to become a mixing engineer/producer in Muscle Shoals, and lived and enjoyed success there for the next fifteen years.

One of the national companies bringing artist to Muscle Shoals was Elektra Records. I was mixing engineer for some of their sessions, working with Russ Miller the V.P. of Elektra in Los Angeles. He convinced me that my future success would be found in L.A. working for Elektra. So I moved to the coast and for two years worked in artist development. It was a dream job for a kid from the South. Expense account, travel, music, music, music and California girls of course. I settled in with one for a relationship which lasted for eleven years. The Elektra dream job ended when the company was sold to Warner Brothers and the staff was “let go."

My next stop was in Seattle for a short time, working for Kaye-Smith studios. My responsibility was to create a Muscle Shoals like recording center in Seattle. Of course the missing ingredient for success was the Muscle Shoals musicians who were not about to move to Seattle. That dream ended after two years of trying and not producing any notable results.

I had been exposed to the Nashville music scene as a teenager. It seemed my music career had reached a dead end on the west coast, so we packed the family belongings and hopes in a U-Haul and moved back to the South. However, Nashville was no longer friendly to me. The music business had changed; it had become a club which I was not invited to join. Plan B: I had been interested in art forever and had some talent with drawing and design. In L.A., I had often stopped by a very artsy architectural glass studio close to Elektra's office to chat with the artist there. This medium interested me, and there was no one in Nashville doing what I was imagining, so I started Nashville's first decorative glass studio. That was my vocation for several years, making art for the country music crowd.

But the West kept pulling me back as I was offered a design job in Seattle. Once back in Seattle, I bought a computer and taught myself coding and web design - when the Internet was just beginning. I knew this technology wasn't going away and I could get in on the ground floor. I started 3Hats Design and started accumulating some important clients. At one time, 3Hats had over fifty small-business accounts, doing design and web services. I still have the design business, but like with most human vocations, the younger generation is pushing me aside. However, it's giving me time to think about other things.

About two years ago, after an absence of forty years, I started getting interested in music again, this time looking at what was possible using digital software to create what we used to do in the wood and carpet studio. I'm now playing a computer instead of a guitar and writing songs again. There are links on the menu/music page if you're interested. Now I do it for enjoyment and not to scratch out a niche in the music business.

I started getting serious about photography somewhere around 2005 when the Canon digital Rebel was released. I had years of experience with computer graphics and design, so it seemed like a natural progression to start using the digital camera. A section of this website is devoted to the result of my quest to become a good photographer despite starting late. I hope you enjoy seeing what I've been up to.

I happily share life with Gloria, another California girl. She encourages my passion for music and photography and provides support and feedback for my efforts.

Comments are welcome via the contact page as I don’t do social mania.

Stay safe,

Marlin