Kirby grew up in tiny Penacook, New Hampshire, and discovered his love for music and the water simultaneously around age 10! While starting to play drums his mother noticed he and his best friend missing for long periods of time in the afternoon and found they hadn’t been at the ball field after all. Discreetly following them down to a forbidden creek off the Merrimack River, she discovered they had commandeered an abandoned wooden rowboat and had established a clandestine lifestyle of fishing, swimming and exploration! The mothers were not happy but made a deal: if the boys hauled the boat home and fixed all the leaks under professional supervision, they could re-launch the vessel and continue their nautical lifestyle, which undoubtedly led to Kirby’s string of sailboat purchases beginning at age 19.

During his early years the Beatles were raging and Scott got his first acoustic guitar at age 12, teaching himself to play by ear and later by pouring over songbooks of Simon and Garfunkel, Crosby Stills and Nash, James Taylor and others. He claims that 40 years, 20 guitars and five boats later, things haven’t changed that much. He’s still trying to sneak away sailing and play some music, although performing over 150 shows a year, writing and recording take up a good part of his time these days.

Although Kirby played in a number of bands through his teens and mid twenties, he didn’t embark on his solo singer/songwriter career until he was nearly 35. In fact, he didn’t own a guitar for a number of years while he was fully involved as a political consultant, managing campaigns and producing all kinds of political TV and radio ads. However in 1988, after eight years of that, he packed his guitar and a few belongings and headed for Key West to get out of the cold and play a little music. Once there he began writing his own material, having been inspired by Coral Reefer guitarist and friend Peter Mayer and a very inspirational late night conversation with legendary songwriter Shel Silverstein. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.