More News on John D.

ACE and X-Tension Chords have begun to receive updates on John's condition by email. If you're interested but are not on one of those lists, drop me a note at wjcoats@ucdavis.edu and I'll fill you in with the latest I've got. Send him a card if you can. Feels like there's some angel watching over him and Tracey right now.

Thoughts and Prayers

I've just had word that band member John-Boy Dickison was in a motorcycle accident on Tuesday morning, October 9. He survived the wreck (praise God), but is laid up in the hospital and faces surgery and a fairly long recovery. Be sure to keep John in your thoughts and prayers. I'll post further news as I get it.

That's Hino as in "Hi!" - "No!," Dude!(Band Profiles, Part II)

Slide guitarist Jeff Hino's early musical experiences included run-ins with piano and 'cello, but he was fortunate enough to come away from both without serious injury. Not long after that, though, he encountered an electric guitar. The effects were life-altering. Early blues influences came from Michael Bloomfield, Eric Clapton, and Dicky Betts. Eventually, the country-rock scene in Tucson, Arizona sent Hino searching for new inspiration, and he found it in the high and lonesome Bluegrass sound.

By the mid-1970s, Jeff had migrated to the Pacific Northwest where he experimented with country and city swing on dobro and lap steel. He appeared in a mouthful of Mid-Willamette Valley incarnations of Bluegrass, country-western, Cajun, and hillbilly jazz groups with names like The Highwater String Band, Spontaneous Combustion, The Sophisticado Swing Band, Cow Patty & Pals, and Waterbound. It's not uncommon to see Jeff performing with five instruments on hand at once, including National steel guitar, Dobro, acoustic guitar, lap steel, and 5-string banjo.

Jeff met up with harmonica-player and singer/songwriter Dave Plaehn in the late '80s, and something clicked. They played their first gig as a duo in 1990. Seventeen years later, the Plaehn & Hino duo is still going strong. They have two CDs in release: On Your Bond, a mix of rural and urban blues plus a George Jones classic, Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away, and one of Plaehn's original songs, and Can't Get My Rest, a collection of tunes that ranges from bare bones country blues to pop blues and R&B.

And capping it off, of course, Jeff has a once-a-year gig with the X-Tension Chords. Since the Chords' first sessions at Lake Tahoe, Jeff's easy, fluid slide guitar backup, hot breaks, and tasteful interstitial licks -- not to mention his outstanding professional communication skills -- have made him an indispensible part of the Chords trademark sound.