Career
He started playing the guitar in church when he was 10 years old. Tommy played on stage with many of the old timers who were part of creating the Bakersfield Sound. Tommy was in the band that gave Buck Owens his first gig, with Dusty Rhodes, at a bar called the Roundup.
Tommy has been playing in the honky-tonks in and around Bakersfield for over fifty years.
Recognized as one of the original “Bakersfield Sound” pioneers, he has helped forge this unique and definitive sound. Driven by the piano, steel and Telecaster guitar, the Bakersfield Sound was a reaction to the early ‘50s and ‘60s sweetening of country music epitomized by the Nashville Sound.
Along with the Western Swingsters, he released the Civil Defense 60 Years of Western Swing in 2006. Tommy was inducted into the Western Swing Society Hall of Fame in 2010.
He currently resides in Bakersfield, California, and still plays locally.