About Byron Crews

Born in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and raised on Rattlesnake Creek in a Ultra-Weirdo Bohemian family in Gainesville, Florida, Byron J. Crews was steeped in the hardscrabble art of Blues and Blues-based rock music from the time he could hold a guitar. 

As a young boy, Byron traveled backwoods shotgun bars with his whiskey-drinking and punch-throwing father, and along the way, Byron was exposed to brilliant original blues artists including Muddy Waters and Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins. 

As a teenager, Byron learned mystic and diabolical guitar licks from legendary musical artists based just north and south of Gainesville, including the mighty Rickey Medlocke, Charlie Hargrett, and Axe band's singer/guitarist Bobby Barth, guitar slingers who all performed in the legendary southern hard rock band Blackfoot. Medlocke has gone on to perform with the contemporary iteration of famed southern rock legends, Lynyrd Skynyrd. 

Byron‘s luck turned when he learned guitar under the tutelage of Hughie Thomasson Jr., an American guitarist and singer, best known as a founding member of The Outlaws, based in Tampa, Florida. In Gainesville, Byron studied guitar with Dave Hlubek, American lead guitarist and founding member of the Southern rock band Molly Hatchet.

Inspiration:

Byron's musical inspirations come from the earthy cultural DNA of North Delta Blues, Mississippi Hill Country Blues, Chicago "City" Blues and Blues-based hard rock. Primary influences include esteemed blues artists from Samuel Hopkins, Muddy Waters, and Son House, Buddy Guy . . . to blues-rockers Johnny Winter, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan . . . to psychedelic rock guitar guitar Titan, Jimi Hendrix.

With years of experience performing and entertaining audiences in dynamic bands including Lizard King and Rocket House, Byron powers on with his own original rock compositions, samples of which are featured herein. 

Byron is currently producing his 2nd album, Rocket House.

Teaching English and Dramatic Writing:

Byron holds a B.A. and an M.A. in English from Wright State University, Ohio and has been teaching English composition, rhetoric, argumentation, politics and the novel, and dramatic writing in the WSU Department of English since 1995. 

He served as writer for The Yellow Springs News and served as assisting editor for Flash Fiction, Sudden Fiction, and Sudden Fiction International. In academia, Byron has brought his professional guitar playing experience to numerous creative contributions to the Wright State University Community and beyond, especially his work in theatre. 

Theatre, Fiction and Film:

As an actor, he appeared in Wright State’s theatrical production of John Sayles' Halfway Diner and has directed music for theatrical productions including the University of Florida’s Sam Shepard's Curse of the Starving Class and Annie Proulx's The Bunchgrass Edge of the World at San Francisco’s legendary Magic Theatre. 

Other professional musical soundtrack and production credits include film documentaries Guilty as Charged, The Dreamcatcher and Personal Belongings, filmed and directed by Steven Bognar, an Oscar-winning and award-winning documentary American-Hungarian filmmaker, whose films have been screened at SXSW, Sundance, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival.

Byron’s original plays, Remote Control, Bone Machine, and Stillborn County Justice were staged at Wright State University's Herbst Experimental Theatre. Remote Control appeared off Broadway at New York’s Zipper Theater. 

Populated by bizarre characters caught in unpredictable and violent circumstances, Byron’s short fiction has appeared in Mudrock Stories and Tales, Nexus and an anthology of fiction for apprentice writers, Gravity Fiction, nominated for an Eric Hoffer award. 

Awards include The Kennedy Center Award for Merit in Theatrical Music Production Wright State University; Outstanding Alumnus; and Professor Emeritus of English, 2021.