MARK THACKER

    My first guitar was a Gibson LG-0, small body, nice neck, easy to play, and I took lessons once a week from a fellow about two blocks from our house. Three new chords each week. First lesson was A, D, and E, and a song to practice with those chords: Just A Closer Walk With Thee. I soon found that I could learn to play songs by ear. I went to my 6th lesson and showed my instructor that I had taught myself to play Wildwood Flower. I was 13 years old.
 
    I began playing in the Cellar of the Harvester in '76, Fridays and Saturday nights, and learned a lot of songs out of necessity...and began to make a serious attempt to write my own songs. '79 found me replacing my friend Dale Perry as the banjo player and vocalist for The Goosetown Astonishers, a Dixieland Jazz band. I'm still performing with them...hard to believe I've been with them for almost 45 years.
    I met Jeff McDonald in the late nineties, and we discovered that we both liked, and played, many of the same songs. We decided to play as a duo, and that eventually led to the two of us recording three albums as Mark Thacker & Jeff McDonald: Over On Paint Street (2011), Standing By My Dreams (2018), and Glidin' By (2020).
    As of this update (April 2023), I'm also enjoying a collaboration with three friends from here in Chillicothe, calling ourselves Joseph, Barnes, Barnes, & Thacker. We mix cover tunes with as many original songs as we can slip into the show, and have been getting a good response for both. What kind of music? I guess it would be labeled Folk or Americana. 
    I'm gigging nearly every opportunity, writing on a regular basis, with varying degrees of success...and learning. Always learning.