He was among a handful of young West Coast musicians to discover and popularize bluegrass music, which was already well established in the Southeast.
He graduated from Oakland Technical High School in 1962, and during the folk boom of the 1960s he played in coffeehouses and taverns in Berkeley and San Francisco, playing with such musicians as Doc Watson, David Grisman, Jerry Garcia, and others.
He later went on to develop a distinctive swing-influenced banjo style, which he performed and recorded during the 1970s and 1980s.
[4] During the psychedelic era he drew posters for the Carousel Ballroom, one of San Francisco's hip rock palaces.
He was a featured artist in various underground comic books, including his own Brain Fantasy published by Last Gasp,[7] and his popular poster Humbead's Map of the World was regarded as an integral part of the folk-rock culture of the 1960s.