BIOGRAPHY

My name is Bob Wurst

I have been play­ing gui­tar and singing for over 65 years, and the last 54 have con­sisted of mostly Coun­try Music. Start­ing like most kids of the 60’s, I was con­sumed with rock n’ roll, and played in var­i­ous rock bands through high school, and try­ing to take my career higher after grad­u­at­ing, but my appren­tice­ship in plumb­ing and steam fit­ting put a stop to my full time dream of being a rock star. But I did become inter­ested in coun­try music in the very late 60’s, fol­low­ing the CMA jam­borees around the city. I didn’t con­sider myself a singer, but more of a gui­tar player, so I joined a cou­ple of dif­fer­ent coun­try bands more for the fun of it than anything.

Then, in late 1970, I was asked by a close friend of the fam­ily to play their daughter’s wed­ding recep­tion. I had no band, but I told them I would throw some­thing together. I first asked my brother Jim, to play gui­tar along with me, and, ask­ing around, I found Criss Sayre to play drums, and Ed Guthrie to play bass. We had no prac­tice together, but we played the recep­tion, and to our sur­prise, get­ting a pretty good response from the peo­ple there. We decided that night to prac­tice together and see what would come about with our newly formed band. That was the start of my his­tory in coun­try music and I would not trade the fun and expe­ri­ences I’ve had for anything.

One of our ear­li­est high­lights was win­ning the 1972 Buck Lake Ranch Labor Day tal­ent con­test, and it seemed that com­pe­ti­tion was some­thing we enjoyed. In 1982 we com­peted in the Wran­gler Coun­try Star Search, win­ning the State of Ohio divi­sion and going on to the Grand Ole Opry to com­pete. In 1987, I com­peted alone in the Mr. Coun­try Music Amer­ica con­test, and again, win­ning the State of Ohio divi­sion, I went on to the Opry in ’88. Although the big win­nings at the Opry eluded me, I can never for­get the feel­ing of being on the stage of the Mother Church of coun­try music. I’ve had other con­test high­lights such as the Nashville Network’s “You Can Be A Star”, and an early local con­test that took us to King’s Island, result­ing in a sec­ond place win in the State of Ohio. The “Lake Erie West People’s Choice Awards” in ’96 and ’97 net­ted me the “Coun­try” award, and in ’98 I won the Coun­try divi­sion as well as Male Vocal­ist of the year cat­e­gory. Then in ’99 I was awarded the top award of “Enter­tainer of the Year”.

All in all, the biggest com­pe­ti­tion of my musi­cal life has been main­tain­ing a band, keep­ing my rep­u­ta­tion good, and striv­ing to have the sound that peo­ple like. That’s the real test! I pre­sume that our “sound” was good enough to get recog­ni­tion in many areas. Over the years my band and I have opened for some of the biggest names in coun­try music, played fairs and fes­ti­vals, made count­less TV appear­ances, played round and square dances for many local orga­ni­za­tions, night clubs once in a while and some­times, just for friends and family.

Open­ing shows for big stars was always my biggest thrill. Along with the oppor­tu­nity of enter­tain­ing, we got to meet and occa­sion­ally, become friends with the stars we were on the shows with. Our best expe­ri­ence with a ‘Star’ was not just appear­ing with them, but pro­vid­ing the musi­cal back­ing for sev­eral big names. In the mid-70s’, we some­times trav­eled with local coun­try leg­end Gary Shope, and by his influ­ence, we became the staff band at Buck Lake Ranch, which of course lead us into open­ing for many big names, and enhanc­ing our enter­tain­ing abil­i­ties. Ulti­mately, we were asked to do shows on our own, some­times even being the head­lin­ers. I will always acknowl­edge the day in 1983 as the absolute biggest day of my musi­cal career, when we got the oppor­tu­nity to open for none other than “Alabama”. At that time they were the biggest name in the world, and lit­tle ole’ me and my band was the open­ing act! Not to down­play any of the other big stars I’ve appeared with, but that was the biggest event I could have ever imag­ined being a part of.

Another area of mean­ing to me was always try­ing to help with a good cause. If some­one needed help, we were ready and will­ing to play for ben­e­fits and fund rais­ers for many dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances. From some­one los­ing every­thing in a house fire, to help­ing a fam­ily who was finan­cially strapped after los­ing a loved one, to a child need­ing a liver trans­plant, (children’s causes were always my weak­ness) or to doing a ben­e­fit for one of our own. In 1990, Rick Fisher, our gui­tar player of many years was taken from us in a car/train acci­dent. To us, that was the most extreme ben­e­fit we ever played.

In 2003, I decided to go solo and have been enjoy­ing a new side of my career. It was a lit­tle odd to me at first, not hav­ing a group of guys with me on stage, but now I am per­form­ing in a way that opens up a whole new venue for me, such as, doing songs that would require an orches­tra, not just a band. New tech­nol­ogy is won­der­ful! My “band” is now a laptop computer full of sound tracks of all the different kinds of music I love to sing. Along with classic and newer country music, I can also do the 50s’ and 60’s I grew up with, and many of the old classic singers like Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole and Perry Como. I just love doing these different styles as much as country music. There’s a mil­lion things in my mem­o­ries and I could write a book about them, but I’ll just make a list of things I have done, either alone or with my band over the years.

Thank you,
Bob