Born and raised in Brookhaven, Mississippi, Jinx grew up tinkering with electronic things, and tweaking neighbors’ sound systems as far back as he can remember.  “I couldn’t stand hearing the system all muddled like that; I HAD to fix it,” Jinx states.   He began “running sound” at church, and then branched out from there, finding his calling in high school as one of 3 on the pseudo A/V team.    He piddled with the deejay idea for a while, soon realizing that turning knobs was more fun than picking songs.  It was time for something bigger.

“By the end of my senior year I had worked with quite a few bands, and even a couple of national acts…not mixing them of course, but a stage tech,” Jinx remembers. “I realized that I really liked the big shows.”  It was time for this little fish to jump into an even bigger pond.  “The Internet arrived; finally, everything you could want to find was right on the other end of a phone wire and some really awful squawking sounds.  I went to digging, hunting every production company in the area (most were in Jackson) and finding any open door to all of them.  I was a grunt for one company, lighting tech for another, assembled rack gear at another place and even mixed for yet another company.  Somehow or another I was involved in almost every event held in downtown Jackson.”  He learned and soaked in everything he could.  He was going to need it.

Two years of community college had come and gone, and with his AA in hand, what next?  “I wanted to keep doing production locally and hopefully one day make it out on tour, but my parents knew I needed further education.”  The solution was Full Sail, cleverly nicknamed Rock n Roll University.  Jinx believes it was one Easter morning when he saw his sister’s Easter basket full of candy, and his sitting there with just the green egg grass.  “I thought to myself that this was a strange way to say I’m too old to get candy anymore, but it turns out there was a small book in the bottom under the grass.”  His parents informed him that instead of candy he was getting to rock and school down in sunny Orlando.

After a quick yet sleepless 13 months, Jinx was out in the real world.  He toured with various acts, from rock to rap, bounced all over the Caribbean with many calypso artists,  and even ran with a play or two for a while before settling down off the road in 2003 when his son was born.  During his touring days he was a systems engineer for rock artists like Puddle of Mudd and Saliva, and FOH engineer for a couple of prominent rap artists.  “We played everywhere when we were out with Master P,” says Jinx, “from arenas to giant rodeo barns.  I remember at one of the places the local crew was shady and no-showed on the out.  P made his entourage get off the bus and help us hump the gear back in the trailer.  But as far as crazy goes, running sound for 50 Cent’s first tour took the cake.  There was one show where he no-showed.  Two huge bouncer guys came out and carried me backstage before they announced it…I was so ready for  a country tour.”  When his kids came along, he dropped the touring and took an IT job, still running sound for local bands almost every weekend.  5 years later, he is now back to running sound professionally, yet locally, and is starting an IT consulting business with a good friend of his.  He still lives locally, lending his talent to local bands as well as still doing local professional work.  “My main act now is Skindeep.  They are great, and have been very open to listening to different ways of doing things so that their live show is better.  A good production manager can really enhance the talent of a band, and finally gives them a true set of eyes and ears at their performances, rather than just their own perception of how great they are (not than any band has ever had that problem…wink).”

Gear:
“For local bands I recommend and use JBL, Crown, and Behringer…for the money and purpose you can’t beat Behringer mixers and outboard gear, even amps.  Put the money in your amp rack and speakers…get a Driverack PA too for your crossover/system processor.  Make sure your amps can deliver twice the power the load asks for.  Headroom is everything.”

“In the pro world, Yamaha consoles and JBL Vertec Speakers, powered by Crown or QSC, I don’t care as long as they are healthily overpowered.”

For more information visit Jinx’s website:  www.jinxonline.com