A six-year-old Gary Wayne Hudgins sat at the family spinet piano in Norfolk, Virginia, banging out a boogie woogie tune his mom had taught him. She played by ear and passed the ability on to her son. His feet couldn’t reach the piano pedals yet, but the music had reached him. 

Thus started a life-long road trip down streets that were “paved with harmony,” to borrow a colorful image from Gary Wayne’s (as he was known to all his neighborhood pals) autobiographical song Honkey Tonk Heaven. Over the years he also learned to play harmonica, clarinet, saxophone, acoustic & electric guitars, bass guitar, drums and percussion, organ, recorder, penny whistle, ukuleles, mandolin, lap steel, and banjo.

A Marine Band harmonica found its way into his life shortly after the family moved from Norfolk to neighboring Virginia Beach. It lived in his pocket, along with his rabbit foot and Cub Scout knife. Leaving the “Wayne” behind with his Norfolk pals, he was known to his new friends as just Gary.  Years later he would become an accomplished harp player, thanks to hours of practice while driving a delivery route. At night he would sit in with folk performers at local bars and coffee houses, improvising to embellish their performances.

While in Shelton Park elementary school, Gary’s dad got him a bad-ass looking steel clarinet from a second-hand store. His dad was a fan of Dixie Land jazz in general, and Pete Fountain in particular. The jazz clarinetist’s albums spun frequently on the living room’s hi-fi “Victrola.” Clarinet in hand, Gary joined his school’s orchestra without delay. He continued playing the instrument into the Bayside High band, his folks eventually replacing the metal horn with an ebony licorice stick (just like Pete Fountain’s). 

Now with some years’ worth of orchestral works exposure, Gary found himself composing dramatic, over-the-top symphonic works in his head to pass the time while pushing the mower over their new, suburban yard. But the music would be forgotten as soon as the work was done. It was just for fun, to drown out the mower’s roar in his head.

As a teen, he also composed rambling, free-flowing songs on the piano that came to him out of the blue, when no one else was home—close to what would later be called “New Age” music. As with the mental lawn opuses, they were forgotten as soon as the good vibrations echoed away.

Over the years he learned to play various instruments that found their way in to the Hudgins’ home. There was mom’s mandolin, brother Frank’s 5-string banjo, mom’s inexpensive (impossible to tune) gut-string guitar. Gary was really the only one who played them (by ear, no lessons) and began composing songs with chords that he had no idea the names of.

A creative soul, the written word also comes easily to Hudgins. His best friend Jerry and he would try to out-do each other with wild tales of spies and their lethal gadgets, inspired by their love of the 007 James Bond movies of the time. 

Encouraged by his teachers, he continued to write short stories and poetry through high school. At Old Dominion University, he wrote reviews for albums and concerts for the student weekly newspaper, The Mace and Crown, enjoying the free albums and concert tickets. 

With an English degree in hand, he went on to freelance for local entertainment magazine Tidewater After Dark,  interviewing popular local bands for cover stories, including the Bruce Hornsby Band when they were first starting out. All the while writing lyrics for his musical compositions.

When he wasn't interviewing other musicians, he became one by playing cover tunes and originals at local folk music mecca Ramblin’ Conrads’ open mic nights, and expanded his performance venues to paid gigs at local bars and restaurants. The friends he made sittin' in with his harmonica repaid the favor and often showed up at his gigs with their instruments. 

Hudgins started recording his compositions in the 1970s on an eight-track cassette tape player that could also record. He upgraded to using a reel-to-reel tape machine in the ’80s, and evolved to using digital audio workstations like Sony Acid Music, GarageBand, and Adobe Audition to record, mix, and master his compositions. He also uses his computer and iPhone to make music videos for his songs.

An accomplished visual artist—a talent he also got from his mom Dorothy Hudgins who was a popular local painter in Norfok—Hudgins creates his own cover art for his single releases, a new piece for each single he releases, offered as merch at https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/gw-hudgins