Tony started playing in Houston Texas where he grew up. Exposed to the roots music of that era with Blues and R&B, he continued his career with a couple of years in New York, then toured with Johnny Nash.
Later moved to London England for five years, and his start there was as a house drummer for Island Records. He then joined Back Street Crawler with Paul Kossoff, and continued as Crawler after Paul’s demise.
In 1979 Tony moved to Los Angeles and found himself working with Eric Burdon of the Animals and Rickie Lee Jones on the road. This was followed by Bette Midler, Etta James and then Bonnie Raitt through her famous sweep of four awards at the Grammy’s in 1990.
Going solo again in the early 90’s he hooked up in the studio with Taj Mahal through John Porter, English producer who also hired him to play on records such as Otis Rush, Keb’ Mo and many others.
The Phantom Blues Band was put together to be Taj’s road band and that’s how they started. They made four records together and toured for many years.
In his career he has also recorded with BB King, played live onstage with him, as well as John Lee Hooker, Charles Brown, Jimmie Reed, Hubert Sumlin, Little Milton, Rufus Thomas, Dr. John, and Eric Clapton.
Toured with Robert Cray and made two albums with his band as well as a Live DVD.
Tony has produced close to 40 albums and various other sessions/artists. Winning a Grammy for producing “Shoutin’ In Key” with Taj Mahal and the Phantom Blues Band, and a Grammy nomination for producing Danielle Nicole in 2019. Several Blues Music Awards were given to artists he produced.
He's also toured with the Sacred Hearts band since the early 90’s backing the Blues Bros., Dan Akroyd and Jim Belushi, and co-produced an album on them as well in 2003. He spent 8 years with a recurring role as an actor on Jim Belushi’s sitcom, According To Jim.
As a drummer he has been nominated for Drummer of the Year at the Blues Foundation’s, Blues Music Awards, at least a dozen times, and won that award in 2018. Happy to be making music with his friends/brothers with the Phantom Blues Band, and looking forward to playing the new music live.