Bart Reid
Guitar and 8 string Bass player

I was raised in the Ft.Worth / Dallas area amidst a fertile music scene. Blues and R & B were everywhere, still are up there if you know where to look. I took guitar lessons for a few years at Hurst music and my teacher was a local player and lots of local guitar players would be at the store late when I took lessons. I learned a lot from those guys but I was just a kid and now wish I would have paid a lot more attention. What I did pay attention to was my dad’s old blues records, Jimmy Reed, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, T Bone Walker, Duane Eddy, Bo Diddly, that’s really where I learned about music and what I liked. That stuff is the real deal and those are my hero’s.

In college- Texas A & M - I met some great guitar players and gigged at parties and such. It was at this time I built my 8 string bass and started to learn to play on it. There were always guitar players but few bass players around and I wanted to play, anything, the kazoo if necessary, so I became a sort of bass player. Really I am a guitar player who plays bass but especially the 8 string which sounds sort of like a bass and a guitar at the same time.

After college I got married and went to work ( marine biologist ) and did not play much except at home. I was always writing songs and for years just played them to myself and my wife and kids. In 1991 I moved to West Texas to grow shrimp and met Kelly Rowden, a great guitarist and electrician from Ft. Stockton. He invited me over one night to play with some guys that were starting to get together on weekends to jam. The night I first jammed with Jim Milam and George Treadaway along with Kelly I knew this was going to be a special collaboration. Jim and I are like musical brothers from different mothers. We can read each others minds. It is like nothing you can describe, total musical connection. I was sold on these guys when I told Jim that I wanted to write songs, not play 300 covers, and he said he had been waiting for someone with that mind set to play with for 10 years. George was new to the whole music scene and was totally on board for writing original songs. George had the blues harmonica down pat and a mind full of original lyrics. Kelly left the band and we became the trio that we are today.

I love it. Totally original music and non typical band ( 8 string bass, drums and harmonica ). Sometimes I play the guitar and sometimes even Jim plays the guitar and George plays bass. I keep threatening to play harp again, which I used to do years ago. Sometimes Kelly or some other guitar player will sit in with us and I get a kick out of that also.

This band is prolific about writing songs. Jim writes the pretty ones, I write the loud and fast ones and George writes the philosophical life songs but they are all fun. I think it is happy music and when you see little kids and old ladies dancing to your songs you know you are doing something right.

I hope to do more recording in the future so everyone can hear everything we have to offer - from complex instrumentals to a capella dirges, but it is all the Pups unmistakable sound. I am also old school and love to string out long jams, sometimes totally spontaneously at live shows. We have a talent for that- I think up a riff and the boys make up a song.

You have to check us out to really see what this is all about - the Thumpin Puppies is like no other band and no other music and if our stuff doesn’t make you feel good about life then you need professional help for sure!

Bart “ thunder fingers “ Reid
Imperial, Texas

Band History | Member Bios - Bart Reid