Miles Apart
From diverse backgrounds and geographic locations, this group is literally “miles apart”, but when they get together to play music, the result is a blend that couldn’t be closer!
The group originated with Vern Gayler (on guitar) and Pat McKeon (on autoharp) who met at a music jam in Ft. Collins. After jamming informally for several years, they performed together on stage for the first time at the 2004 Masonville Gospel Festival. They decided to continue singing together, and in 2006 they were joined by John Bailey on lead guitar and Patrick McCarthy on bass.
Vern, a third generation gunsmith and mechanical engineer by training, moved to Colorado in 1974 from Missouri and lives close to the Wyoming border, near Livermore, CO. Pat left a statistical/management analyst career with the government in Washington DC in 1988 and now lives behind Horsetooth Rock, near Masonville, CO. John grew up in Iowa and after 4 years in the Navy, worked in magazine/industrial/photo journalism, switching to home improvements in 1989 until he retired in 2002 in Ft. Collins. Patrick was born in Brooklyn, NY but grew up in Texas, where he was a teacher and school administrator. Retiring in 1986, he was a musician in Ruidoso, NM, but now lives in Fort Collins, where he met Vern, Pat and John.
The group has played at gospel festivals, concerts, church functions, nursing homes, senior centers, craft shows, and other venues. While it was Gospel music that got them started, they also perform a variety of country, western, bluegrass, swing and old-time music, from the 1800’s to the present. You can hear the influence of Chet Atkins in John’s guitar playing, and Mother Maybelle Carter in Pat’s autoharp; Patrick has been compared to Willie Nelson, and Vern has a style all his own! They’re “Miles Apart”.
Contact Vern Gayler for more information at 970-224-2668.