Ron Green

 Ron Green had his musical beginnings in the mid 60’s when, in high school, he  formed a band called the “Nailbenders”. This high school garage band played local slab dances (bands would set up on city park tennis courts) and local venues in Spokane & Coeur d'Alene ID. "Arriving late, we practically closed a club in Trail, B.C.!" Claiming to play for "parties, concerts and orgies", one big nite playing at the grand old Fox Theater disaster struck when the 50' curtains opened- removing all the P.A. gear, mikes & stands, and the lead singer into the orchestra pit! 

Ron,  having seen the Beatles in Seattle (1964) was also Influenced by the Byrds, Eric Burdon and the Animals, the Kinks, Stones, and the British Blues Invasion. Ron also loved songs from Pacific Northwest & Seattle influence- pre grunge bands: Sonics, N.W Wailers, Marilee Rush, Paul Revere, Don and the Goodtimes etc. "God I think I listened to everything and most styles". 

Before high school ended, the Nailbenders fell apart when the groups keyboardist was sent off to a private boarding school, having been caught by the family housekeeper in an act of indiscretion with his girlfriend.

After playing with a seemingly endless number of dead-end  local groups at least once, and living in rock & roll night clubs- Ron in the 80's and 90's played bass with RiverTalk, (folk) Aardvark (country rock) Mickey Rat, (a power rock trio) and Blues Fuse with the late Joe Johansen- (blues fusion). He has also worked with Steven Simmons, Eric Rice, Lindell Reason, Fiddli'n Al, and other various local hippies, liberals, artists and rock-stars. 

Powered by Ampeg and playing vintage Gibson and Guild  basses, Ron’s musical history has had a heavy influence on the song selection and sound of the Blisstrz.  Bass player, wooden boat restorationist, artist and craftsman, Local 93 stage crew, audio geek, dad and dog lover- He is married to Mary Ellen who once told Ron that "she would not wish to be married to a man who would play bass for any band called: 'Kammel Toe'".….

Pete Lineberger

  Pete Lineberger started playing acoustic guitar while sequestered in a New England boarding school with an unlikely assortment of bored but talented boys from New Mexico, Wyoming, Oregon, Montana and Chicago. Their trademark performances for the student body consisted of strumming and singing as loudly as possible in the fully-tiled dorm bathrooms with the windows wide opened, while the kids sat in the grass outside and savored the cacophony.   Senior year, 1965, they cut an LP of mostly original songs as "The Shenandoans." At his summer job on a dude ranch, he started singing solo around the campfire. This led to things like college coffee-house gigs and a first marriage - neither of which withstood the test of time.

  After many lost years of practicing law, mountain climbing, fly fishing, and teaching his kids the love of music by amusing himself with his own interpretations of contemporary songs, Pete finally got a steady gig at his church. This made him practice in earnest, which led to his meetings with Bill and Ron in Spokane.

  The formation and development of The Blisstrz has been the fulfillment of a dream for Pete: good music for fun and for free. His personal motto for the band is, "If it's no fun, I quit." A dedicated amateur, Pete nevertheless tries hard to help keep the rhythm going on the love-of-his-life possession, his Taylor 6-string acoustic, while crooning, shouting, and singing vocals outside of his natural range. He is blessed with an amazing wife, Connie, and three very hip daughters.

  Ron Sinnott

 Ron Sinnott  deeply involved with his Irish roots and has been studying Celtic music for a number of years. Learned the mandolin, learned to read music, forgot how to jam and his guitar took second fiddle so to speak. But he really liked the idea of knocking the webs and the rust off his trusty Gibson 330 guitar that some how survived his life and play with these guys. Guitar muscles were weak. But something about these guys made him want to keep coming back for more. Rock & Roll was still in his blood somewhere and his wife was BEGGING him to find it. Playing music we all grew up with, our different and similar tastes and styles. MAGIC!!!!…..Ron’s musical history - Most recent, well actually 20 years ago a band called "The Brokers" was a near brush with success. If those kids just didn't drink so much............other near bushes, and always fun, "Stryker", "Memphis Reunion" and of course "The Mickey Mouse Club".

….Ron is married to the most wonderful and beautiful Janet. An artist, musician, best friend and superb wife….He will never finish loving her.

After a failed attempt with another drummer, Ron Sinnott brought in his friend, Troy Major into the group.

Troy Major

When Troy was a child his grandma got mad at him for beating on pots and pans.  He played bongos when he was 9 or 10 years old.   Troy liked to listen to Michael Jackson, Jazz, R&B, and the Supremes.   While in high school in Seattle he liked to listen to Rock and Roll.  Troy first played drums when he walked into a music store and tried out a set.   When he was in his mid 30s, Troy began playing drums with a friend who played bass.  Troy climbed behind the drum set and began to teach himself to play.  Eventually others began to join the jam sessions and they formed a full band, complete with guitar and singers.  He stopped playing in 1998 until he met a friend who had a drum set at home.  Troy bought a drum set and put it in his basement but soon became bored with playing alone.  Ron Sinnott asked him to come and audition with the Blisstrz who had just lost their drummer.  Troy has been a member of the Blisstrz since early 2005.  The more he plays, the more he learns, the better he gets and the better he sounds.  His Blisstrz nickname is “The Count”, a name earned with his steady, natural metronome.   Troy’s significant other Margaret.  She and Troy have been together since 2003.  Troy has 4 children; 3 girls and a boy.  Troy is happy to be considered a musician.

Tuck Johnson

Tuck Johnson has been playing music since grade school in his home town of Grass Valley, California. His original training was in Jazz and he played lead sax in his high school jazz band.  

An admirer of all music, Tuck would visit the Sacramento Jazz Festival every summer to listen to the classic jazz, zydeco, Dixieland and blues. He soon found that he would inevitably gravitate to the Blues Pavilion to listen to the rich variety of blues music that Sacramento has to offer. After high school, Tuck decided that while his training was in Jazz, he much preferred the soulful sounds of Jazz’s dirty uncle, the Blues.

Unfortunately, circumstances largely prevented Tuck from playing saxophone during his college years in San Francisco, but he carried his Hohner Bluesharp with him everywhere he went and was known to break out into drunken blues jams at parties and it was not uncommon to hear the whine of a harmonica coming from the second floor of the Mary Park dormitories.

However, soon after finishing college, Tuck moved to Sacramento and started a band with his sister, Jenny.  The band played a diverse variety of rock music and during this time Tuck began to develop a passion for song writing. Although Tuck moved to Spokane in 2007 to pursue a day-job, his first band, Disfunksion Junksion is still gigging at local venues in the Greater Sacramento area.

Upon moving to Spokane, Tuck began playing keys with the church worship team. Because this was the first time he had ever played keys with a group, Tuck was eager to advance his skills and soon became a confident improvisational key player, although he still thought of himself as a “horn player forced to play the piano.”

Tuck was invited to play with the Blisstrz in the fall of 2008, shortly after the former lead singer and harmonica player left the band, and began as a saxophone and harmonica player. However, with the subsequent additions of John Wheatley on saxophone and lead singer / harmonica player Bob Jones, Tuck has found his niche playing the keys, although he is still more than happy to step away from the piano to blow some harp, add some penny-whistle to a Celtic or folk song, or power out some gut-busting low notes on his vintage rust-colored bari sax, Diesel.

Playing with the Blisstrz is a truly satisfying experience for Tuck, as he feels free to explore all of his musical interests from sax to harmonica to the keys. Having plaid with other musicians all his life, Tuck finds that the Blisstrz’s good-natured spirit and easy does it attitude is a breath of fresh air from the usual clash of egos that comes when playing in a band. Tuck looks forward to a long and fruitful career with the Blisstrz, even if he ends up having to play the tambourine!

Robert W. Jones 

 As with many musician wannabe’s of my era, my initial love of rock and roll came as a result of watching The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. After hearing “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” and “All My Lovin,” I was hooked and immediately started trying to grow my hair, (my Dad, being bald and jealous, forbid that) listen and attempt to sing, quite poorly, every Beatles song written at the time (my Mom got tired of hearing that) and learn how to play the guitar (After receiving one for Christmas it took all of two days for me to realize that there was too much work involved for that). But I never did give up on the singing part and eventually arrived at the point of barely being able to hold a tune as carrying a tune sounded too labor intensive. Fortunately, for me, the needs of a rock and roll singer require only that I be able to hold a tune, so hold I did, and it’s what I try to do now.

            After hitching around the country for five years in the early 70’s and singing on every freeway on-ramp in America while plying my thumb for rides, I started creating the style that defines me to this day-singing as loud as f**king possible so nobody can detect the minute flaws in my vocals.  

            So, after many years of being chased out of keg parties for attempting to sound like Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin fame (another superior blonde), in 1993 I ended up practicing with a band in Okanogan County by the name of The Big River Boogie Band.. The only reason they kept me on the “payroll” was that I knew the words to many of the songs they played. Also, it didn’t hurt that I was the only guy in Bridgeport, Washington with the hubris to try. After the guitar player left for, not quite as brown, pastures, a couple of the original group teamed up with a couple guys from the only other band in the area and created the four man mega group, The Rock and Blues Band.  This name is an example of imagination run rampant in Okanogan County, but the band itself actually played a hundred or so paying gigs over the next few years and it’s where I learned how to sing within a band system.

            After this group had run its course, the guitar player had a friend who could also play and sing, so along with a new bass man we created Jawbone’s Road. This band could really smoke and started playing quality venues where stars like John Mayall,  Elvin Bishop and Too Slim and the Taildraggers appeared regularly. Then we had the  opportunity to open for the locally popular group The Company Band, when our guitarist vocalist and good friend, Brad, had the bad manners of dying in a Jeep rollover accident while driving drunk. After this I wanted nothing to do with organized music, and it would have stayed that way had it not been for my old drummer who invited me up to Curlew to jam with Force of Habit, an eclectic band from Curlew who had a lady singer who, according to my old bass player, really wailed and, I found out, could sing too. And though I did get to play on the big stage at the Sun Banks Blues Festival, my role in this band consisted of singing lead vocals on six songs, backup vocals on a few others and the occasional blues harp solo. Driving to Curlew, being a 125 miles drive each way,  became too much of a hassle for too little playing so I quit that band and only jammed a time or two until being asked by the Blisstrz drummer Troy, to come and try out. The band happened to be in transition and needed a singer, so they gave me a shot. I guess I’m doing ok as they haven’t given me the boot… yet.

            I’m excited for the future of this band, not only because do we do quality renditions of other bands music, but also create our own songs. No other band I’ve played with can say that.  Songs I’ve written that will one day be discussed by future musical historians, include that ode to excrement pushing, “Dung Beetle Blues,” and the self explanatory, “Now I Know Everything.” So whatever the future holds for The Blisstrz, I’ll be ok with, because at age 56, my rock and roll opportunities are dwindling, so I guess I’m stuck with these guys.

In truth, I feel lucky to be amongst some of the finest “gentleman” I have ever met who also just happen to be damn good musicians.

            I’m having one hell of a time!

            Thank You,

John Wheatley

My dad had a band in the 1920’s. During the depression the band broke up and dad quit playing.   Fortunately for me he stored a couple of his old saxophones in our attic. What a treasure for a young boy with a vivid imagination to find, saxophones your dad played! The year was 1955 I was in the 4th grade and eager to play.  I pestered my parents, as only a 10 year old on a mission can, to have the old Martin Alto Saxophone reconditioned so I could learn to play. They could not stand the pressure and one day my dad gave me his old sax. It was newly padded, adjusted and ready to go.  So was I.

I went to Mt. Washington Elementary School in Cincinnati and learned to play in the school band.  One of dad’s old friends was a saxophone player and owned the local music store. Joe Tonge taught me how to pick out a good reed (like good people, they have a good heart) and he kept my horn in good playable condition. I developed a passion for music at a fairly early age.

Through high school, I played in the school band and hooked up with the Dave Chapman Band playing combo charts of big band swing music. In the summer between my junior and senior year, I decided I wanted to really study music in college; but being basically self taught I had doubts about the audition. That summer I took my first private lessons from a local studio musician and much to my (and my parents) surprise, I was accepted by the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music.

At the University, I met John DeFore (a trumpet player, composer, and arranger) who played with Maynard Ferguson’s Big Band after Maynard split with Stan Kenton. John, as a graduate student, directed the stage band program and basically developed the early program at the University. It was through John I began to learn chord progressions and arranging. I changed my major from saxophone performance to composition at the University.  By that time, my passions turned to jazz. We would spend Sunday afternoons at John’s house listening to records of the big bands and small groups of the time. I developed an interest in tenor saxophone and idolized Stan Getz. I played with local jazz and rhythm & blues groups, including Michael and the Jesters, in the Tri-State area. My fondest memory was playing a jam session with a bunch of the musicians from Count Basie’s band. I almost exclusively played tenor sax from 1964 until I quit playing music in 1969.

Yep, I quit playing in 1969 to pursue a career in the insurance and surety industry. I managed surety and insurance operations for various national insurance companies and insurance brokerage firms. My career took me all around the country including; Boston, Detroit, Cleveland, Houston and finally in 1983 to Alaska (both Fairbanks and Anchorage). While I enjoyed my career, the music fire continued to burn.

The music fire smoldered for about 30 years until it rekindled in 2000. I found that my skills returned fairly quickly and have had the opportunity to play with excellent musicians around the city. I have played at Cyrano’s, Sullivans, Tony Romas and various festivals including Augustfest 2003.