My father and mother were both bluegrass musicians. My brother sang too. My grandpa was a radio personality in Texas back in the 1940s and 50s and worked with many legends of country music. He also picked the guitar a bit, too. My great grandpa was a vaudevillian (that's him in the fancy picture to the left). He played the guitar and trumpet and did some yodeling. Before him, on my father's side my relatives in England were performers in the British music halls of the 1880s. On mom's side, my great grandparents were both gypsy musicians that roamed the Czechoslovakian countryside.

I guess it was inevitable that I now make a living playing music. I was born on July 23, 1979 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. My earliest memory is of my parents winding up my grandfather's big Victrola and playing phonograph records by the likes of Al Jolson, Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee. I also remember attending a concert (when I was about two) by children's folk singer Raffi. There were instruments everywhere in my house and I started playing piano but was always more intrigued by the guitar. We had an old parlor guitar and I would sit and play it for hours, teaching myself chords and playing along to the sheet music left behind from my grandfather's vaudeville and medicine shows.

When I was in third grade I booked my first gig: a show at our church's preschool. I played "If You're Happy And You Know It" and "Bingo" (hmmmm, looks like I've come full circle, twenty years later!).

About two years later a strange man moved in across the street who possessed a high soprano voice and the smallest guitar I'd ever seen. His name was Tiny Tim and he lived in the house across the street from ours. Of course his name meant nothing to me - I was born 11 years after "Tip-Toe Thru The Tulips" and a wedding to Miss. Vickie made him a worldwide celebrity. I quickly learned that he was interested in old vaudeville and ragtime music so I brought over some of my favorite records to his house. We talked for hours and became fast friends.

The next day my folks took me to a great place called Willie's American Guitars in St. Paul and I bought my first ukulele - a little Harmony from 1934 that cost my entire life savings: $25.00. Lessons with Tiny began that afternoon and over the course of the next four or five years he taught me nearly all the songs he ever sang.

It was an odd upbringing. With his connections in the music world, it wasn't uncommon for Elton John, Howard Stern or Leon Redbone to stop by our neighborhood to have dinner with Tiny. As a middle school kid obsessed with vaudeville and vintage music theater I thrived.

As soon as I was able, I auditioned and was accepted at the Arts High School in Minneapolis which was a place that was even more bizarre than having dinner with Tiny Tim and Leon Redbone. There were punk rockers and poets, painters and pirates and they all were high school misfits. I loved it. I quickly started my own band with a cute girl from Jamaica named Kitty. She was a trained pianist and R&B vocalist so she didn't exactly fit in my jug band, but I gave her a xylophone and hoped she would stick around. She did!

We started playing street corners and skipping school to busk in downtown and Dinkytown. That summer a bunch of us took a train to New York City and played music in nearly every park and street corner in the Big Apple.

Senior year got under way, and I figured it was as good as time as any to "go pro". Kitty and I pitched all our money together, rented an ancient reel to reel tape deck from the 1940s and started working on the album that would become my debut, "Wizard Oil". My record collecting jazz musician buddies from New York and New Orleans agreed to come to Minneapolis for a marathon recording session. Somehow we released the record and so my musical adventure started just before high school let out.

I toured and toured and toured some more. In those early days of the Mullet River Boys it was Kitty (now playing string bass), our friend Chad (on fiddle and banjo) and me. Going from club to club, bar to bar, coffeehouse to coffeehouse. We criss-crossed the United States and Canada more times that I can count. Somehow my 1978 Ford F250 pickup truck never failed. We recorded whenever we had the chance - sometimes in studios, sometimes in basements and sometimes in chicken coops.

Eventually a newspaper dubbed our music as "vaudeville-bluegrass" and that description stuck. We got a manager named Art Huckman who told us to wear neckties and so we did. We started playing nicer and nicer venues and eventually found ourselves touring and playing opera houses, performing art centers and major music festivals.

But I wasn't happy. Kitty and I had gotten married and were starting a family of our own and I was tired. I was tired of constant touring. I was tired of wearing neckties. But mostly I was tired of playing music for an audience - I wanted to play music with an audience.

It's funny looking back at it today, but when I released my first album back in high school I told Kitty, "we'll use the money we make from this to do what I really want to do: a children's album."

I've always loved "kids music" but found so much of it not organic or honest or "real". So much "kids music" was adults talking down to kids. I wanted to do a record of folk songs, vaudeville tunes, medicine show ditties that appealed to kids and their parents. More than anything, however, was that I wanted to use my music to bring families together and provide children with happiness, joy and a positive experience making music for themselves.

I went back to school without telling the guys in my band. Kitty went with me. We studied Early Childhood Education. I learned a lot about kids and about how to write songs from their perspective. After being a wanna-be Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen for the past ten years, I was now realizing that it's really tough to write a great song for a two year old.

I was finishing up my degree (and working part time at a local preschool) when the owner asked if I would play at a fundraiser for our school. "Sure," I thought, "just one gig and then I can proceed with my plans of being a full-time teacher and very part time weekend musician." So much for that. Kitty and I had developed some cute animal characters to use as teaching aides in the class room and so we thought, "let's have them be your back-up band." That was the debut of Penelope The Possum, Olo The Donkey and Coconuts The Kangaroo - collectively known as "The Zinghoppers".

The show was a hit! A big hit! Moms and dads loved it, and more importantly - children really loved it! We were asked to do several more shows because of that first gig. It snowballed on it's own path and things traveled faster than I could have ever dreamed.

Within six months of that first gig, we had moved from Minnesota to Arizona to tape a season of "The Zinghoppers Show" for a local PBS station, had toured 37 states in America and played shows in Mexico, Canada and did a two week tour in Australia. Long story short, because my musical focus had shifted to children and family music I found myself twice as busy as I ever was with my old pursuits.

But the really remarkable thing was that I was having fun again. A lot of fun. The joy and exuberance of making music had returned - all because of the happiness of families and children enjoying (and making) music together.

In addition to my work as host with The Zinghoppers Show (both on TV and on stage), I re-formed the Mullet River Boys and changed our name from "Jack Norton and the Mullet River Boys" to "Conductor Jack And Friends". We essentially play the same style of music but our goal is to not build up our band or stroke our own ego - our goal is to have fun, and provide an honest experience for children and their families.

Kitty and I moved to a town just outside of Nashville, Tennessee and she writes a lot of the songs for our group - she often plays the string bass with us too. Oh, she also "helps" Penelope The Possum dance and provides her voice - as well as the voice of our dear donkey friend, Olo. Beyond that she's my manager and runs our office. (A note to any husbands reading this: make your wife happy, let her be your boss!)

So now that you know a little bit more about my background, I'd like to introduce you to my Friends in the live band. As of the summer of 2008, I play smaller venues as a solo artist (Conductor Jack) and for larger events I have a backup band (Conductor Jack and Friends). We play "family music" - folk songs for children and adults that are influenced by vaudeville and bluegrass. It's been a fun ride so far, now it's time to kick off your shoes and join us in our dance!